Baseball Pants and Knee-High Socks
by Saxy Lady Writes
Summary: From the Little League World Series to High School junior varsity and varsity baseball, Maka Albarn and Soul Evans have always been rivals with a deeply rooted respect for one another - and a deeply buried desire: What if he were catching my pitches; what is she was the one I was calling signs for? And of course the admiration never voiced - baseball pants do wonders for the butt
1. Little League

**Baseball Pants and Knee-High Socks**

 ** _Soul Eater Resbang 2015_**

 **Summary:** From the Little League World Series to regular games on Junior Varsity and Varsity high school teams to benchwarming college games, Maka Albarn and Soul Evans have taken baseball, themselves, and winning as seriously as Gordon Ramsey takes cooking. But that's what happens when you've been bitter rivals with someone for years; your relationship is one that few understand. It can only be built as you watch someone grow and develop as an athlete while simultaneously wishing they would _just reach that plateau already_. They've grudgingly recognized the other as an incredible athlete, have yelled and screamed over a play that they should've made, that they would've made if not for that person - and they've harbored a little whisper in their hearts, a voice that questions: What would happen if _he_ were to catch my pitches, if _she_ were the one I was calling signs for?

And, of course, the admiration that will never be voiced. Baseball pants do _wonders_ for the butt.

 **Warnings** : language, overly-competitive losers, sports-related stress, bad puns

 **Rating:** PG-13 for language and lowkey romantic situations

 **Pairing:** SoMa with background pairings not significant enough to be important.

shout out to Professor-Maka for her wonderful beta skills at 3 in the morning. She's the best, as always.

also, shout out to my wonderful, amazing, incredibly talented artists ahshesgone & mrsashketchum (who made the beautiful cover for this fix) who put up with all of my shenanigans and writer's block and still created art that I've cried over several times. It's amazing amazing and everyone should go check it and them out!

* * *

It started with a handshake. As they looked one another over, each captain made assumptions about the other, assumptions that were quickly changed the minute their hands met.

Soul Evans was relatively confused why a small, pigtailed girl had approached him so determinedly. She had a ballcap shoved backwards on her head, so he assumed she was the little sister of someone on the other team and hoped that she wasn't there to bother him. And then she stuck her hand out in his direction.

The smirk that curled across his self-important expression pissed her off, and she narrowed her eyes.

Her hand was small and thin, just like she was, but there was a certain strength in her grip—a strength that was reflected in her eyes as she glared at him over their clasped hands. He looked like he had never put a day's effort into anything he did, with slouched shoulders and disinterested eyes, but the calluses that covered his palm told of long hours spent in the batting cages.

And then she spoke, and damn it if it wasn't the perfect voice to match those fierce green eyes—clipped but strong. An elementary schooler had no right to sound so commanding, honestly.

"My name is Maka Albarn. I'm the captain of the Death City Angels. We're very much looking forward to the game tomorrow."

The surprise that wiped his expression blank made her smile in victory.

"Uh, Soul Evans, Fenwick Flyers." He quickly regained his cocky attitude, perfect smirk back in place. "Hope you don't mind it too much when we wipe the scoreboard with you guys."

Maka's competitive spirit flared to life. She laced her fingers behind her head, rocking back on her heels like they were having a nice chat between friends. A sharp smile of her own curled her lips as she drawled, "Ah, will you? Hope y'all aren't so bored you forget how to make basic plays—kinda like you did in that playoff game, yeah?"

"Just don't forget to bring the tissues," he snapped, turning on his heel and stomping away.

Maka watched him leave, his hands shoved in the pockets of his pants; that should get him rattled, she thought with satisfaction. The Flyers were admittedly better than the Angels—and it was all thanks to Evans. If she had to play dirty to push him off balance, then so be it. Her jaw clenched. Maka refused to see her teammates' defeated expressions as they saw their Little League dreams go down the drain again, refused to be the cause of their tears and broken hearts. As their captain, as the ace of the team, as the starting pitcher, she had a responsibility to bring them the win. And she would, no matter the cost.

Soul kicked the side of the concessions building. He had finally managed to push that game out of his mind, but one word from her, and all his worries and insecurities as a baseball player came flooding back. Eyes watering from the pain in his toe, he leaned his forehead against the warm cement, the memories of the final game of the regional competition, of the line drive to third, of the pass ball, of his stiffness… Soul slammed his fist against the wall. Dammit. It had been entirely his fault that they almost lost that game, and the look in her eyes told him that she knew. Similarly, he knew what game she was playing. Soul set his jaw, pushed himself upright, and headed towards the Flyers' entrance gate. There was no way his team would lose to hers. Not as long as he was captain.

* * *

"HEEY, MAKAAA!" As soon as she was within hearing range of her team's dugout, she was greeted with a familiar obnoxious cry. His enthusiastic waving, though, had her smiling. It helped her to forget the knots in her stomach from the memory of Evans' haunted expression. She needed to forget it. She'd show nothing but the most positive face for her team — she owed them that, at least.

"Can it, Blake." Harvey Éclair shoved the center fielder, but his protests fell on mostly deaf ears.

"I keep telling you, Harv, it's Black Star. Black. Star."

"Dude, that's the dumbest nickname ever—"

"It's cool, _cool_ —"

Maka ignored the pair's usual banter with a roll of her eyes. As she jogged up, she smacked a high-five with her catcher, Kirk Rung, who was stretching out in the small patch of shade offered by the lone palm tree near the field. It was lining up to be a meltingly hot day, typical for late summer in central California. Hailing from Nevada, the Angels were used to practicing long hours in unbearable heat, but Maka wondered if the Flyers would be able to deal with it. She shaded her eyes, looking across the field to the opponent's side; some of their shirts were already darkening with sweat from just the warmups.

Good.

"Hey, hey, Maka, you're doin' that thing again," Blake said, his loud voice practically in her ear. When she turned her head to scowl at him, his finger jabbed painfully into her cheek and he burst into laughter. It took one look and a half-step from a girl not even five feet in height to send the idiot scampering away, still laughing raucously.

"What the heck was that all about?" Maka asked, rubbing her sore cheek.

The catcher shrugged. "Your game face is real freaky. He meant well."

"He usually does." She sighed as pulled her arm across her chest in a stretch. She'd missed a good majority of the team warmups, and she hoped riling Evans up would make up for the lost practice time. Not that the coach would see it her way, but Maka was willing to make sacrifices for what she thought was right.

"But what were ya doin' over there?" Kilik asked as he swung his arms in large circles. "Lucky ya didn't get caught by the coaches or umps." Kirk nodded toward her uniform. "No fraternizing other team while in uniform, remember?"

Maka pursed her lips; the kid wore glasses, but she was pretty sure he really had super-vision and only wore them to make his eyesight normal. "That's only for Major League, jerk. But I was just...saying hi. We've never met, and I wanted to let him know exactly who they were gonna be dealing with tomorrow."

"That's the freaky side of you, y'know," the catcher stated matter-of-factly, in his staccato Caribbean Islander accent. Maka scowled and threw one of her batting gloves at his head. Kirk laughed, catching it easily. "How'd he respond?"

"Exactly as I wanted him to."

* * *

"Yo, Akane! You warmed up, or what?" Soul yelled to his starting pitcher. His tone was short, agitated, and he could see his teammates giving each other sidelong looks. He glared at some of the younger players who were staring too long.

Akane Hoshizoku came jogging up to the captain from where he had been chatting with some of the other pitchers. Even though he had just joined at the beginning of the season, and even though he was the oldest player and would be graduating the Intermediate League after the World Series, he had quickly and easily fit in with the team. Soul was jealous of the other boy's self confidence, but for all his petty feelings, the catcher couldn't deny that Akane was an amazing pitcher. His control was beyond anything Soul had seen from a pitcher so far in his eight years playing baseball, and as a catcher, it was all that Soul could ask for.

"Hey, lay off them, Captain," Akane said quietly, putting his hand on Soul's shoulder. His voice had already changed, and the deep tone helped to calm the catcher's rattled nerves. "Coach'll yell at you again if you're too harsh."

"Yeah, I know." Soul's voice was gruff and he willfully ignored the glances his teammates shared. "Sorry. Gimme a sec to drop this stuff off and get my gear on, then let's go work on that curve that's been giving you trouble." He didn't wait for the pitcher to answer, just turned and continued on toward the dugout, adjusting the bag full of his gear as he went.

He was snapping at the team, but he was the one who was late. He hated being late. Not that it had really been his fault. Albarn had held him up, after all, lying in wait like she had, loitering outside the field until he arrived. Even though there were "no loitering" signs (she was from the west, though, so there wasn't any proof that she could actually read those signs.) Albarn probably hadn't thought anything of catching him before practice, but to him it was a big deal. It disturbed his rhythm, and Soul didn't like things that messed with his habits.

Annoying.

He dropped his bag onto the bench with the loud clanking of metal bats knocking into each other. Soul sighed and pulled off his cap, running his fingers through the stubble. It was hot, even with his hair in an uncool buzz cut. The other boys had wanted to do it in celebration of winning the regional competition, and Soul, high off their victory, had joined in. There had been hell to pay when he'd gone home, his mother furious he had broken the appearance of the perfect high-class boy, but it had been worth it just to have her attention on him for once.

Soul closed his eyes and tilted his head back, taking a deep breath of the warm air. He needed to get on the field, needed to shove any useless thoughts to the dark corner of his mind where they belonged, where they sat and brewed, and baseball was the best way he'd found to do it.

"You look pretty shitty," said a deep voice behind Soul. The catcher spun around, clutching his heart. Standing there was the Flyers' coach, arms crossed and looking as cool as any snake. Soul got a slimy feeling from Coach Moss - Mosquito, as they called him behind his back, for his tendency to buzz around and bite - and he wasn't very fond of the man's coaching methods – but he couldn't deny that they were effective. Before the coach joined the team, the Flyers would have been lucky to make it through the first elimination round. And now – now they stood at the cusp of the world stage, two teams away from being America's representative in the World Series.

Well, after all, Soul had heard that the man was a baseball fanatic, had a doctorate in Kinesiology, had spent his whole life analyzing form and what made the best baseball players the best. He probably would have made a damn good ball player - if he was any taller.

"Coach," Soul greeted while shoving his hat back on his head. "It's hot."

And it _was_ ridiculously hot. Only 9 in the morning, and temperatures were already climbing into the mid-80s. At least the open-air style dugouts offered chances for a cool breeze to blow through; they'd definitely be grateful for that during game time - if wind even existed in this place.

"It's summer, so drink lots of water." Moss began to walk away, mostly ignoring Soul's comments, as usual. "Oh, and lay off the other kids. You're the captain, not their coach - you're supposed to be their friend, not their boss."

Soul curled his lip at his Coach's back. Except he was sort of their boss? As soon as they stepped on that field at game time and Soul got into position behind home plate - that field was his domain. He called the pitches, he was responsible for keeping the pitcher calm, he told the infielders if there was a shift on, he directed the pickoffs, was responsible for getting the out on any stolen bases - it was him the team relied on out there during game time. It was him, not _Mosquito_ , the team looked to for support. He was the captain; he was the one everyone was relying on to keep their spirits up.

It was a lot of responsibility for a twelve-going-on-thirteen year old.

* * *

Practice was scheduled to be relatively easy, the focus just on perfecting a few of the key plays. Despite that, Maka's uniform stuck to her uncomfortably, and she wiped her forehead before winding up for the next pitch.

Kirk's glove was low and inside the strike zone for a leftie; it was Maka's weak zone, and they both knew it. She breathed in slowly through her nose as she brought her knee up tight to her chest, attention entirely focused on the worn spot in the center of Kirk's glove.

Right there. She had to put it right there. Evans batted left, and if he made a connection with a screwed up pitch, the game was as good as over. She hated him; hated how easy he made everything seem, hated how well he could organize and motivate his team. She'd spent hours re-watching the Flyers' playoff matches, and the more she'd studied his movements and his plays, the more her stomach had churned.

With a big exhale, Maka lunged out of her windup, arm coming out wide and low, knee skimming the ground. The ball sailed in the curve she wanted, and kept going - and going - up above Kirk's head. The catcher exploded out of his squat, barely snagging the ball before it flew past him.

For a moment, Maka allowed admiration to bloom in her chest; she really was lucky to have a catcher as great as Kilik Rung.

Back to business though, Maka's face fell flat. "Again," she called, holding her glove out for Kirk to toss it back, chest heaving with repressed tears. Why couldn't she do it, _why_? How could she hope to lead her team to victory if she couldn't even put the ball where Kirk wanted?

The catcher took one look at Maka, and then shook his head. "Break, Albarn. No point killing yourself the day before the match."

"No, again," she demanded, face red at the sympathy she knew she was getting from Kirk at the moment.

Rung gave her a stern look - appraising her condition, she was sure – and then glanced over at the sleeping pitching coach. With a shake of his head, Kirk lobbed the ball back to her. "One more time, and then I mean it, Maka."

The ball was familiar in her hand, the sun was warm on her back; it all set the scene for the perfect pitch. Kirk's knees cracked as he settled into his squat, the sharp sound ringing in the quiet bullpen. Maka wasn't sure where the relief pitcher had gone, or if he had gone at all; it was only her and her catcher, and the feeling that she could do this.

Kirk signaled – four fingers (fast, her brain supplied instantly); two fingers, together (curve); tap against his calf (down and inside) – and Maka agreed with a sharp nod. One more time. Once more she brought her glove up, knee to her chest, coiled up, a spring ready to burst – and then a lunge forward, hand snaking around, shoulder creaking, fingers rolling off the ball, twisting its trajectory at the last moment. Submarine pitchers were rare these days – from the majors down to little league – but she'd grown up with underhand pitching, even though her first love was baseball, and submarine pitchers were unsettling for batters to face.

Maka wasn't sure she was all that great of a pitcher, but when the batter saw her duck down at the release, saw her knee nearly scrape the ground - well, she wasn't above using intimidation techniques. The number of three-up-three-down innings she'd had in her seven years of playing little league was almost impressive. But the Flyers were not a team to mess around with; their coach had an evil look about his eyes, and Evans' influence as a catcher was notorious among the League. It was all the news had talked about, and the recorded games Maka had seen - Maka may have not minded intimidation techniques, but the Flyers lived and breathed them.

And she was a sham of a pitcher, anyway, Maka thought, as she watched Kirk leap out of his crouch once more to catch her wild throw. Maka's determination went out of her all at once, and she dropped onto her haunches, head buried in her hands. The crunch of Kirk's shoes on the clay alerted her to his approach, and she mumbled her apologies.

Gently, his hands came down on her shoulders. Even more gently, he said, "Maks, there's absolutely no reason for ya to be sorry, though? You're incredible. The 'Super Submarine,' remember? That's what they're calling you on the news stations. You're famous! Twelve years old and major leagues already want to recruit you!"

Maka's stomach twisted, and she swallowed thickly. Dropping her hands from her face, she shook Kirk off with a glare. "Yeah, and what happens when the world finds out I'm just a fake, huh? That I actually suck and can't throw a decent curve? Huh? What then, Rung? What happens when I fail?"

The catcher released her shoulders, but grabbed one of her hands in both of his and carefully folded the dusty baseball into her grasp with an encouraging smile before plopping heavily next to her on the mound. "Then we start again, next year." The lilt of his Caribbean accent made him sound so carefree, and Maka almost believed him. "We're only twelve, y'know? There's a lot of years between now and the majors; I know you'll somehow figure out that spot. You're Maka-fricken-Albarn. You'll do it."

She spun the ball in her hand, the feel of the stitching and the leathern familiar as it passed over calluses from years of practice. It fit snug in her palm, as though it was meant to be there. Her fingers closed tightly around it, but she could still see some white between them. Someday her hands would be big enough to enclose the ball entirely; someday she would be bigger and stronger and better.

Maybe Kirk was right.

But the fact that there was the possibility in the future for a win didn't change the fact that there was also a strong possibility of failure in the present, and Maka didn't do maybes very well. At all. She liked concrete. She liked to know that she could do it, to have proof of past success to gauge her future success.

And she didn't have that right now. And she wasn't comfortable.

The pitcher got to her feet in one smooth movement. "Again, Rung."

With a sigh, the boy followed suit. "Aye, aye, captain."

* * *

Coach Mosquito was living up to his name again: buzzing and annoying, biting in all the places you couldn't scratch. Soul scowled at the coach's back as the former shortstop waved his bat around, screaming something about slow feet and sloppy gloves to the middle infielders; he'd just that morning scolded Soul for being too harsh on the players, and there he was, yelling his head off.

The catcher winced in sympathy at the younger boys, who looked exhausted as fielding practice neared the two hour mark. They'd made a sloppy play, sure, but they were only eleven, and the play had connected; Coach was being unreasonable, and everyone knew it. The sun was sinking down lower in the horizon, and the team all just wanted to go back to the motel, take a hot shower – maybe even a bath, Soul thought; he was so sore – and have some fun before the game the next day.

But unfortunately, only Soul had the authority on the team to try and do something about moving them towards that goal.

Soul hung his head with a sigh, stretching his shoulders out as he pulled his body away from the dugout fence. Collected, the catcher trudged up the concrete steps. He could feel the hopeful eyes of all the boys on the team as they watched him cross the short distance from the field to the batter's box where Coach Mosquito had been hitting balls out to the fielders.

"Coach," Soul called. The short, mustached man looked up and around, trying to identify who was interrupting his rant. Spotting Soul jogging up to him, the coach narrowed his eyes.

"What is it, Evans?"

"A word?" When Coach Moss nodded his head in assent, the catcher stepped in close and began speaking quietly. "Coach, with all respect, the boys are tired. They're nervous, too. D'you think it would be better to cut practice short today so that they can rest up and be fresh for the big game tomorrow?"

Moss looked down his obscenely large nose at Soul, then turned his beady gaze out onto the sweating, panting field of boys. "They've been fucking up this play every time we run it. I'm doing this for your guys' benefit, you know."

"Right, Coach, and we know that," Soul agreed patiently, adopting his father's negotiating voice. "We know you're doing everything for the sake of us getting this win. And we appreciate everything you've done for us so far, we really do. But weren't you just telling me this morning to not be too harsh on them?"

The coach scowled and swung the bat up onto his shoulder. "One more time, and if Otto can stop the ball, you boys can do your cool downs!" he called to the team. "Otto! Remember, you've gotta get in front of the ball; it's really not that difficult a concept!"

"Thanks, Coach," Soul said before turning to jog back off the field.

The boys in the dugout swarmed Soul as soon as he was back through the fence, throwing arms around his shoulders and jumping up and down around him as though he'd just knocked in another home run. He grinned around at the excited boys, sharing in the relief that practice was almost over, but shushed them quickly.

"You know Mosquito; don't get too happy for too long, or he'll, like, make us run another mile or something." Soul chided, though his heart wasn't really in it and his team knew it.

The _ting_! of a metal bat hitting the ball caught the team's attention, and they watched in anticipation as the ball skittered across the infield grass, and Ike Ottomon threw himself in front of it desperately to stop its path, and then deftly flipped it back up to second baseman Trey Utley, who stomped victoriously on the bag.

There was a moment of hushed disbelief, and then the dugout and field exploded in cheers, everyone rushing out to praise the relatively stunned short stop. In the mess of shouting and jumping boys, almost everyone missed Mosquito's small, cold smile; it raised goosebumps on Soul's arms, and he quickly averted his gaze.

* * *

Maka couldn't sleep. Lights out was at 9:00, but she tossed and turned and stared at the flashing lights from passing cars for more than an hour before finally throwing the sheets aside and stepping into her frog slippers.

She was supposed to be sharing a room with the mother of a teammate, but the lady had been snoring loudly since her head had hit the pillow, and Maka had a feeling she wouldn't be waking up again until the alarm went off in the morning.

Out in the cool night air, the pitcher finally felt her head clear a little. Staring at the shadowy ceiling for so long had done little for her mental state, and Maka just needed to think about nothing. Cars flashed by on the throughway in front of the motel, and Maka wondered where they were all going. Headed home to families and cozy beds? She hoped that they were.

For a brief moment, Maka's chest squeezed. Her father was supposed to have been at the competition, but his softball team had had a game on the other side of New Mexico and he couldn't reasonably get away. Part of Maka wished her mother could be there, at least. But another part of her worried that Maka would simply have disappointed the all-star pitcher if they lost the game. There was so much excitement, so much riding on her shoulders, and Maka just wanted to give up. It was too much pressure, with the nation watching her actions and her team resting their hopes on her pitching and her accuracy. Maka groaned loudly, resting her forearms on the grimy metal railing and sticking her head over it. She wasn't thinking about it, she wasn't thinking about it, she wasn't thinking about –

Was that Evans? On the balcony below hers?

A thin, white-haired figure leaned against the peeling railing of his own floor's balcony. The boy, clad in a thin t-shirt, looked too fragile to be the Evans who stood broad-shouldered and narrow-eyed on the field. It seemed wrong for a strategic genius like Evans to be so human under the full moon.

"Evans?" Maka called out hesitantly to the boy below her. She wasn't sure why she did; it wasn't like they were even acquaintances by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps she felt a certain level of kinship with him, because though he was a brilliant ball player, he was still out soaking up the moonlight, nervous, before a big, important game.

The kid craned his head around to see who said his name, and Maka's stomach squeezed. It was him. Evans squinted up at her, trying to distinguish her features, she was sure. "Yeah? Who're you?"

Maka's fingers were trembling when she held her hand up in an awkward wave. "Uh, Maka Albarn? From the Angels. Um, we met earlier today, I don't know if you remember me or –"

"Albarn?" Evans asked, the confusion evident in his expression. "What d'you want?"

"Can we – can we go somewhere to talk? That's not so awkward?"

The catcher's cheeks flared as red as Maka was sure hers already were and he made some approximation of a nod. "You wanna come down here? I think I saw a bench somewhere near the vending machines"

"Y-yeah."

* * *

Albarn's hair was still wet from her shower, and the powdery scent of the motel's complimentary shampoo wafted towards him every time she shifted on the dirty bench. Soul cleared his throat at the same time that Albarn started to say something. Both preteens broke off awkwardly, and Soul glanced over at the red faced pitcher sitting nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

"Sor-"

"Go-"

They broke off again, and Soul breathed a laugh. He gestured for her to go first, not wanting to risk speaking at the same time as her; Albarn had been the one to call him out, so she should also be the one to explain why the hell she did so.

The pitcher fiddled with her hair, separating it into two chunks and holding on to them tightly. "Uh - um. Sorry. For, y'know, calling you out here. And everythin'." She had a hint of a southern accent, Soul noticed, as though one of her parents had been from the deep south and she'd picked up on certain pronunciations.

"No prob-" Soul's voice cracked, and he wanted to disappear. Ears flaming, he cleared his throat and tried again. "No problem." He scratched the back of his head. "What's up?"

"Just - just can't sleep. Nerves, and stuff, I guess."

"Are you scared?" Soul teased, bumping her shoulder with his gently. The Albarn curled next to him right now reminded Soul of how the younger players would shiver and freeze up before starting their first game.

"No," she snapped vehemently back to him. "We're gonna win."

Soul stared at the small girl, taking in her hunched figure, knees pulled to her chest. Her pose screamed insecurity, but those green eyes of hers burned furiously even in the dim yellow motel light. "Well," Soul began slowly; his heart was pounding in his chest for some reason, and he had to collect his scattered thoughts. "Well, I guess we're going to have a problem, then, because the Flyers are going to win tomorrow."

Maka got to her feet suddenly then, hands tucked behind her back as she directed that slow, fierce grin at Soul; she was so small that even with him sitting, they were nearly at eye level. Soul swallowed. She was back to the proud ball player that had confronted him on the field that morning, and it was unsettling how quickly her demeanor changed.

He blinked when her hand was suddenly in his face, so similar to early that morning. "We'll see about that on the field, Evans!"

Eyebrow raised, Soul took her hand with a small laugh. "Sure, I guess."

Albarn nodded at him and spun on her heel. She had one foot on the second step when she stopped and looked over her shoulder back at Soul. Her brows were furrowed, and Soul scowled. "What?"

When she smiled at him this time, though, it was gentle. "Thanks. For coming out here and talking with me and stuff. You're really not a bad guy, Evans!" Her expression brightened, and Soul shrank back from the glint in her eyes as the moon shifted. "But we're still gonna beat you. Night!"

And with the last sound of her bouncing up the stairs, Soul buried his burning face in his hands. "I'm not a bad guy, huh? She's so weird."

* * *

The scent of warm rosin and leather surrounded Maka as she brought her glove up to her face, centering herself for her wind up. This was her moment of truth, her do-or-die moment: She either nailed this pitch or her team went home in shame, and all the newscasters would talk about "what a shame it was" that she'd been "washed up so young."

The pitcher shook her head, repeating her catcher's advice from the day before. Maka looked past Evans, bouncing his bat around on his shoulder, batting stance textbook-perfect. She blocked out the blur of the colors that were the screaming fans just behind home plate. She even ignored the umpire standing behind Kirk imperiously, his face hidden behind the metal cage that Maka's imagination briefly twisted into some horrid monster before logic stamped out the apparition.

Kirk's glove, Kirk's glove, Kirk's glove – there was nothing else in the world; there couldn't be. The catcher brought his knees close together, the neon nail polish he used to make it easier for her to see his signs flashing as his fingers flipped from four to two and tapped the inside of his calf.

Maka took a deep breath.

Sweat was running down her back and the sun was burning her neck, but all of those were only distractions. They didn't matter. Maka had to tell herself they didn't matter. Screaming muscles, stinging palms – it was all part of the game, and the game was a part of her. All she'd ever known was baseball; she lived and breathed the sport, and the thought that her body might betray her on this one pitch – it was unforgivable.

Evans was up to bat, and Kirk's glove was almost in the dirt. She could do this-it was _The Game_ -she had to do this. Maka's knee curled up to her chest, and the world seemed suspended as she coiled into her windup and then snapped out, arm snaking down to skim the clay mound. Her eyes were trained on the worn spot on Kirk's glove, so she didn't get to see Evans' reaction to her pitch, but she hoped he had a look of horror for just a moment.

After showing him her weakness the night before, she wanted to also show him the she wasn't all talk. There was a bite _and_ a bark, as her father had once said. It was 1-1, Flyers, top of the 4th, and Maka's bravado, this game's turning point, the Angels' victory all rested on her pitch smacking solid and true into her catcher's glove.

But with a sinking, nauseous feeling, Maka watched her low curve do a 180 mid-pitch, soaring high out of the strike zone. Kirk jumped out of his squat, snagging the wild pitch before it hit the umpire in his mask.

Maka bared her teeth in a snarl, jerkily bringing her glove up for the return pass as the ump called ball one. This was it; she was done. The team was going to lose, they were going to give her those _looks_ that made her want to dig her heart out with a spoon and eat it, and no college would ever recruit her and she could basically just kiss her major league dreams bye-bye because no way was -

Kirk still hadn't tossed the ball back to her yet, and she refocused on her catcher to see him making the slow trudge up to the pitching mound. No _._ God, _no_. She turned her back on her catcher, scuffing her cleat in the powdery clay. They'd wet the red dirt that morning, but the California sun had dried everything out by the top of the third.

Kirk's warm hand landed on her left shoulder, arm wrapping comfortingly around her neck. His Islander accent was muffled and twisted by the glove he held over his face, but the melodic rise and fall of his voice relaxed her stiff posture a bit.

"Maks, you gotta pull yourself together, girl. I know this pitch is scary, I _know_. But it's not just you out here. Look around, Cap'n," Kirk said, fingers digging into her shoulder, accent thickening as he got excited. Maka lifted her eyes from her beaten cleats to the field full of her sweaty teammates - her friends who had stood by her through everything.

She'd feared the disappointment she would face if _she_ lost the game, the glory she would face if _she_ won it; yet somehow, Maka had forgotten that baseball was a team sport, that everyone who stood on that mound had seven friends at their back and one in front, all of whom fought _together_ for victory. The pitcher made eye contact with the middle infielders, huddled together in their own conference, and the two boys gave her big, goofy grins and even goofier peace signs; she couldn't help the small smile that crawled across her face. With a big sigh, Maka nodded, tension flowing from her. The umpire whistled for time-out to end and Kirk gently folded the baseball Maka hadn't realized he had been holding into her hand, just as he had the day before.

Maka briefly watched his quick jog back to the batter's box before her eyes slid past Kirk's narrow shoulders to Evans' taunting expression, red eyes shaded by his batting helmet. Discomfort stirred in Maka's chest, and she brought her glove back up to her face to hide the snarl she gave him in response.

Kirk was settled back down behind home plate, and Evans stepped back into the batter's box. He lowered his right hand, signaling he was ready for whatever Maka could throw at him. Kirk flashed his sign to her again, four, two, tap, and she nodded once. _Okay; she was fine._

She could do this. Maka's eyes slid shut for a moment, collecting her emotions, her thoughts. Her fingers spun the baseball in her glove, the feel of the warm leather under callused fingertips comforting. One failed pitch didn't make her a failure, and one lost game didn't make her team losers. Even if they lost this game, they'd made it this far, had beaten countless teams. They wouldn't be losers.

Maka snapped her eyes open, burning gaze focused on Kirk's glove, face impassive. She subconsciously noted Evans grin, sharp teeth flashing in the killer sun, saw him spin his bat tauntingly. But then she was winding her body up, energy coiled in her center - and then her arm was snapping out low to the right, fingers twitching the ball just off a straight course at the last moment.

Stumbling out of her pitch, Maka managed to straighten herself just in time to see her pitch curve neatly inside, just flirting with the edge of the batter's box - and to see Evans bring his bat in close, shoulders hunched, body curled in on itself in order to knock the ball into the gap between first and second.

Her angry, unintelligible yell harmonized with the sharp _ting!_ of the metal bat. But all she could do was watch despairingly as George and Juan dove desperately, ball bouncing carelessly just beyond the reach of their outstretched gloves. To see left fielder Hiro sprinting in, sliding across the carefully manicured outfield in order to scoop up the ball and toss it to the centerfielder. Blake had a strong, true arm, and Maka bit down on the back of her glove as Evans rounded the corner for first, head and arms pumping. Blake was gonna make it, Blake was gonna make it, _Blake was gonna make it -_

Evans slid into a clean, foot-first slide, dust rising dramatically. His cleat came to a firm rest on the bag just as shortstop Harvey's glove came swinging down to smack him in the back.

 _Safe._

Maka could've screamed. She might've screamed. Why was he so fast? That was _unfair_. Blake was well know for having a strong arm for his age, and the fact that Evans had outrun it was insane and made Maka want to gnash her teeth. A look at Blake showed him staring at the rival catcher as though he'd like to take a big chunk out of him.

When Evans directed his shit-eating grin towards Maka, though, she spit to the side and turned her back on him, adjusting her cap as she went.

* * *

Soul scuffed his foot across the clay, sliding it out to balance himself, bouncing from foot to foot. He was taking a pretty generous lead off the bag, betting that Albarn was going to continue ignoring him. He lightly clasped his hands between his knees, crouching slightly. His eyes were trained on Albarn's thin back, watching for any shift in her weight that would hint that she was going to spin and try and pick him off.

Akane was up to bat and Soul bit his lip to hide his grin. The calm pitcher with his equally relaxed batting stance was easy to underestimate from the rival's side. He didn't brag and taunt the other team, didn't cockily swing his bat around, using unnecessary movements to make himself seem bigger. No, he just stood there, weight poised on one strong leg, bat resting calmly on his shoulder. And much like Albarn's pitch threw most batters off, Akane's impervious stare gave most pitchers the jitters.

He was scary and Soul loved it.

But Albarn was different, and as Soul watched her shoulders rise and fall in a quick exhale - her pitching tell - he would bet Albarn was returning Akane's stare with a cold smirk of her own.

Soul stifled a shiver as he watched her deliver her submarine pitch from the back; God, he wanted to catch that pitch. Being on the receiving end of it as a batter was odd and enticing enough in its own right, but Soul wanted to know what it would be like to guide her, to be the one calling the pitch, to feel it smack squarely into his glove. He wanted to study her form, her delivery, to be able to discuss it with her, in order to figure out just what she was doing wrong on that low inside curve.

He shook his head, and shook his feet. The game was here and now, and there was no need to be dwelling on impossibilities when his pride and his team's pride rested on this win.

Soul shifted his weight slowly, settling his momentum into his far leg, ready to spring into action the moment -

 _Ting!_ Akane reached for the wide pitch, face screwed up in a concentrated expression Soul had only seen maybe four times since the older boy had joined the team, and dragged the pitch down the first base line.

The Angels scrambled, Albarn racing toward first, the catcher and first baseman rushing in towards the ball where it bounced halfway down the first base line. But Soul only saw all of this out of the corner of his eye; he was already desperately sprinting for the next bag. Nothing mattered but the off-white base and the screaming of his teammates echoing in his ears and in his heart - not that he could decipher what it was that they were screaming. A quick glance under his arm showed the rival catcher scoop up the ball. Soul was halfway down the baseline, lungs and legs screaming. The catcher was reeling back, was whipping his arm forward.

Soul poured on the speed, forcing his leaden legs faster, faster, _faster_. Soul was almost there, the bag was ten feet, eight feet - he threw himself into a headfirst dive, not thinking about the consequences of his choice. Gravel in the clay scraped at his forearms, dug into his chin, and his hand slammed painfully into the unrelenting side of the bag. But he was there, his hand was on it.

Soul looked up at the third base umpire, who looked between the third baseman's glove on Soul's shoulder and Soul's hand pushed up at an uncomfortable angle on the side of the bag. With a twist of his mouth, the umpire laid his hands on top of his forearms and then swept them out: Safe.

The third baseman - number 11 - straightened, protesting. "C'mon, ump! I had him; I _had_ him!" But the umpire's calls were final unless challenged, and a glance over at the home dugout said that the Angels' coach didn't see the point in wasting his precious challenge.

With a shrug, the third base umpire walked back to his station, and 11 turned his glare on Soul. The catcher finished brushing pebbles from his scrapes and shaking loose clay from his uniform - before directing a smarmy grin at the third baseman.

"Rotten luck, eh, eleven?" Soul couldn't help but taunt the other player. His wrist hurt in a way that he didn't logically like, and his chin was throbbing - but adrenaline would take care of those minor inconveniences if he threw himself into the game hard enough.

The bespectacled boy simply _harrumphed_ and looked away, muttering about lucky breaks and blind umpires.

Albarn struck out the next two batters, middle infielders Otto and Trey both staring open-mouthed and trembling at Albarn's unsettling delivery. Soul's heart stuttered every time her saw the girl's arm whip out, knee skimming the clay and body twisted low; it was as unnatural as it was exciting, and - _God_ he wanted to catch her pitch. Soul shook his head, trying to stop focusing on that one impossibility, and dug his stance into the red dust, literally grounding himself in the game happening right then.

Pinch hitting for the left fielder, Dave Hitchins sauntered up to the plate next, and Soul had to grin at the cocksure way his friend knocked his bat against home plate before pointing it at Soul. _You're coming home, buddy,_ was what Dave's matching smirk seemed to say.

Dave's bat rested comfortably in his hands, and Soul inched his way into a dangerously large lead off. Right-hander Albarn stared at him, measuring, and though he couldn't see her expression in great detail, he imagined her green eyes were frosty. A light shiver ran down his spine, but Soul just crouched lower, trailing his fingers in the loosened dirt. He was so close to home, just forty feet, but with two outs already, if Dave got thrown out - the inning was over; it was a single or nothing game.

Soul bit down on his lower lip, hard. If it had been any other pitcher but Albarn, Dave's confidence would have been justified. But Soul knew how disorienting Albarn's pitch was to look at; three at-bats and six innings, and it still threw him for a loop. Dave had only managed to hit a line drive straight to first, and he was the Flyers' best batter, after Soul himself.

Soul kissed the knuckle on his thumb for good luck as Albarn sent him one last frigid glance. She wasn't going to try to pick him off, had found out in the third inning that all that did was waste her energy and her team's time. She had a beautiful windup, though, Soul couldn't help but notice, her left knee high and tucked close, body perfectly balanced. As soon as her right knee was skimming the dirt, arm bending unnaturally back, Soul was skipping out a few more steps, edging his way closer to home.

It was a dangerous gamble he took, and he would be pulling out what little hair he had left if any of his teammates had tried it. Go too far, and you won't make it back to third before the catcher picks you off; don't go far enough, and a short hit could mean you're out. He had to tempt the other players to throw to home, when they usually would just toss to first and dust their hands of the inning. But Soul knew from experience that a player edging closer to the base was a cause for nerves - and nerves brought wild pitches and wild passes. Soul almost liked wild more than anything else, nowadays.

The ball left Albarn's fingertips, spinning beautifully, and heading straight for the lower edge of the strike zone. Dave held still, blew a bubble with the gum he'd been chomping on, and let the pitch come in low, as a ball. Soul breathed out slowly, breath hissing through his teeth. Dave could have hit that ball, but Soul knew that the other boy was trying to prove a point: He wasn't scared and Albarn wasn't that good.

Soul's foot hit the bag, and he immediately turned back to take the lead off again. Albarn was staring at him in a way that was intentional enough he knew she was trying to tell him ' _I see you_.' Soul shivered, ground his teeth together, and dug his cleat into the ground. The pitcher turned her gaze away and Soul could breathe again.

One more ball and two strikes, and Soul was getting really sick of having to jog back to third to tag up before returning to his spot, which was starting to get well marked with trenches from his constant digging with his cleats. Soul shook his head and filled a couple in as he waited. Albarn was standing, still as a statue, eyes closed with her glove up to her nose. The bespectacled third baseman stood halfway between third and Soul's daring position, and Soul spared him just a glance to check his position. Then his eyes were back on Albarn pulling her knee to her chest.

The pitch was low, and he nearly grinned outright. It was Dave's favorite spot, low in the strike zone. The left fielder tensed up before swinging his bat in a shining arc, the _ting_! of his hit loud and clear and solid; the ball soared up and over the heads of Albarn - who watched it thin-lipped - and the first and second basemen. Just past the infield, the ball took a sharp dive, plopping into the grass just out of reach of the left and centerfielder's gloves. The centerfielder almost made it, though, but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. While this game was war, Soul was already taking off for home at full speed, barely sparing another look for the centerfielder who had scooped up the ball and was cocking his arm back to power it to home. But the ball was just over the pitcher's mound and Soul was stomping triumphantly on home plate.

The Flyers were was going wild in the dugout as Soul's brought them into the lead, shaking the fence and whooping and hollering. Soul's face was stretched into a painful smile when he smacked a high-five with the on-deck Kowski. He spared a glance back over his shoulder at Albarn, who stood stock still, staring stiff-shouldered after Soul. The catcher didn't think it possible, but his grin stretched even wider, and he stepped into the cheering mob that was his dugout.

* * *

Maka was rattled, and she was embarrassed that it was showing in her playing. Two and a half innings, and she'd let them have one more runs while scoring none for the Angels. Evans was keeping the pitches random and strategic enough that no one could find enough of a pattern that they could predict the placement. Maka hated him, and she was sure the catcher would be tickled pink to know it.

She wished she could say that the Flyers success was all due to Evans being unfairly proficient at his position, but the Connecticut team was solid in their bats and defense; Maka didn't want to think of the number of hours they had spent on drills to perfect some of their tougher defensive plays.

It was the bottom of the ninth, though, and Maka swallowed nervously as she stepped into the on-deck circle. Kirk was up to bat before her, and she settled her bat over her shoulder as he did. The Flyers' pitcher had been unnaturally nonplussed by any of the events all day, his eyes calm behind his glasses and face impassive. He went about his job with confidence and efficiency, and Maka's gut churned with jealousy.

The pitcher - number 04, Hoshizoku - had a quick windup and delivery, and that in and of itself was almost as disconcerting as Maka's own submarine style. His pitch wasn't overly fast, though, so it was easier to see where the ball was headed than some of the other pitchers they'd faced in playoffs.

Kirk's batting style was almost as relaxed and efficient as the pitcher's movements. He made the way he scooped the low pitch up and over the heads of the infielders seem easy. The catcher took a heartbeat to determine the ball was going to be fair, and then he took off, tossing his bat to the side and running for all he was worth to first.

Kirk got to the bag safely, and the Angels yelled and stomped and shook the dugout fence. Maka watched him laugh and slap their younger teammate stationed as the first base coach on the shoulder, before handing over his batting gloves and ankle guard.

She sent up a short prayer for good luck and crossed herself quickly before she stepped up to the plate. Leaning her bat against her leg, Maka pulled her batting gloves snug and tightened the Velcro

"Nervous, Albarn?" came Evans' taunting voice from her right. "All the people watching you, your team relying on you. It's the ninth, after-"

"Shut up, Evans," she snapped, voice haughty and cold to cover up the way her mouth had gone dry and it suddenly seemed ten degrees colder, despite the blistering Californian sun. With one last tug on her gloves, Maka swung her bat up to her shoulder, but held her left hand out to hold off the pitch as she dug out her stance.

She could feel Evans watching her every movement behind her, and her motions were jerky and erratic because of it. Maka couldn't help but think about what the catcher had said, couldn't swallow because her mouth might as well have been cotton balls. It was the bottom ninth, Angels one run down, and with one out already - Maka knew this was do-or-die: She either managed to get on base with a double, or she got out and essentially kissed hopes of making it to the next round goodbye. There was a young first year starter between her and Blake, and if Maka didn't bring Kirk closer to home, they would only win through some out-of-season Christmas miracle if Blake managed to hit a homerun; he was 1 for 3, though, and those were odds not even Maka's father would bet on.

Evans really was just way too good at his position, Maka thought. She had expected 04 to throw the first pitch down the middle, like he had almost every other at bat, but Evans called a high inside curve. She ducked back away from it, thrown, though she'd apparently had no reason to worry because the ump called it fair.

The dugout exploded in _boo_ s and " _open your eyes ump; can't you see that was way inside"_ s and Maka hid her smile by tapping her bat against home plate.

"Your team ever heard of glasses? 'Cause I think they may need them if they think that pitch was outta the strike zone," was Evans' snarky commentary.

Maka's mouth flattened into a line, and she tapped her bat against the plate one more time with more force than necessary. Then 04 was preparing his pitch again, tugging on his cap - probably copied the pros' habit of doing that because he thought it made him look _cool_ , Maka thought caustically. But there was too little time between the hat-tug and 04's pitch to get distracted, if Maka was going to try to spot its trajectory.

Low - outside - her weak spot. Maka slid her hands further down the bat's taped leather grip, towards the flared bottom, lengthening her grip on it so she could reach the pitch. Being short and small was good because people underestimated her when she stood on the pitcher's mound, but it did make it more difficult to reach outside balls in the batter's box.

She just barely managed to reach the ball, but it tipped foul. Kirk, halfway to second base stopped midstride, and jogged back to tag up on first.

Three times Maka just barely managed to stay alive, desperately reaching for the outside pitches. She could feel her heart pumping adrenaline through her body. Her hands trembled on her bat and her knees shook in her stance. There was so much resting on her hitting a single or double, and in that moment, she hated batting. Maka knew Blake thrived on it, loved being in the spotlight with everything resting on his shoulders, but Maka liked knowing that if something were to go wrong, she would have teammates there to back her up.

Hoshizoku was winding up for another pitch, and Maka tightened her grip on her bat to still her shaking fingers. His release was slower than normal, she noted, and it looked like he'd twisted his wrist at the last second. It was an odd pitch, and it wasn't until the ball was halfway to home that Maka realized it was curving way inside - way more inside than he had pitched before. At the last second, she managed to twist her body away, to expose her back rather than her elbow to the dangerous _smack_! of baseball against skin.

Pain bloomed up from just below her right shoulder blade. Breathing was hard - and for a moment just after impact, she forgot how to do it. A firm hand was on her elbow then, pulling her upright. Evans, catcher's mask abandoned somewhere, was peering into her face, mouth pulled down in a concerned frown. "Albarn, are you alright? Anything hurt?" He paused and seemed to reconsider his words, "well, anything hurt more than how it feels when a 50 mile-an-hour baseball hits you?"

Maka turned a weak glare on him. "M'back _hurts_ , but no, I don't think anything's, like, broken?" her voice rose in an unintentional question.

Evans let out a breath of a laugh, and released her elbow so he could gently shove her shoulder. "Take your base. Jesus."

"No, I'm Maka," she grinned, turning on her heel to begin her slow, painful jog to first.

"And I'm _done_ ," she heard Soul mutter behind her, and Maka wished he wouldn't be so funny because laughing _hurt._

The tiny shortstop struck out, just as Maka knew he would, and she bounced from toe-to-heel as Blake stepped up to home plate. His face was more serious than she'd seen it, and while it made her nervous, she was glad that he was aware how much was riding on his shoulders, at the very least. The centerfielder pushed his batting helmet down more snugly on his head before scuffing out his stance in the batter's box.

Evans' sat up from his crouch, heels flat on the ground, half standing. They were going to pitch it high to Blake: Evans' glove was leveled at Blake's ribcage. Maka chewed on her lower lip as she slid a few more steps away from first base. She was ready to run, was ready to try to make it home on a double - if Blake could manage one.

The pitcher was winding up; Maka shuffled a few more inches to her right. She could feel her heart pounding desperately in her chest. Her palms were sweating. The bruise blooming on her back didn't hurt yet, but some part of her knew that it would and dreaded when she stopped running on adrenaline and would actually begin to feel it.

Number 04 released the pitch, and Blake twirled his bat once before swinging - under the baseball and late, for all his bluster and self confidence. The ball smacked solidly into Evans' glove as Blake was almost through with his swing. Maka groaned and turned to jog back to first. Blake was wound-up and overeager, and was making stupid mistakes because of it. She wished that there were batter conferences like pitching ones, because Kirk needed to work his calming magic on the centerfielder right now.

Tagged up, Maka took a lead off of first again, inching farther and farther away from base as the seconds ticked on and the rival battery continued to ignore her. She made eye contact with Blake as he was settling back into his stance; she flashed him a peace sign, trying to tell him that it was OK. He was still wound up, though, and was constantly moving in the batter's box, swirling his bat, readjusting his balance. Maka could only hope that the movement would distract the pitcher, because she knew from experience that it didn't help Blake's batting average.

But Maka had never seen a pitcher more unfazed by anything; she watched 04 pitch another strike straight into Evans' glove. Her mouth twisted bitterly, and her tag-up on first was more of a stomp than a step.

"I don't think your pitcher is human," Maka snarled at the Flyers' first baseman, startling a giggle out of him. She could hear him snort as she shuffled into her lead off.

Evans was back in his half-crouch, glove leveled at the same spot it was before, and Maka groaned internally. It was Blake's weakest spot, and he unfailingly chased it - and of course Evans noticed the centerfielder's bad habit and took advantage if it.

Maka had to marvel at the efficiency of 04's pitching style, the speed and quietness of his delivery. She hated it because she was jealous of it.

Third time's the charm - and Maka grinned when she heard the harsh _clang_! of Blake's strong swing crashing into the ball. She was off the base and running even before Blake had finished his follow through, even before she could tell if the ball was fair or foul or would be caught. There were two outs already, so none of that mattered; if it was fair, she would have a jump start on her base run, if I was foul, she'd simply turn around, and if it was caught - well the inning, the game, would be over, and it definitely wouldn't matter then.

The cheering of the Angels' dugout died as Maka was rounding second, Kirk almost home, and the Flyers' dugout was going wild, players emptying onto the field. Slowing, Maka glanced behind her to see the Flyers' right fielder waving his glove triumphantly in the air. And the game was over, just like that.

Maka came slowly to a stop, shoulders slouched in defeat. Kirk was crouching next to Blake, one arm around the other boy's shoulder.

As Captain, Maka had to shove down her disappointment, her desire to stand rooted in her spot and cry and yell about how it wasn't _fair_ , but she couldn't; that was baseball. Her father had a silly saying to sum up baseball: There was always a winner and a loser, but whether you were a loser of a winner or a winner of a loser depended on how you handled yourself after the hats had been hung up. The complexly profound sentence helped her straighten her posture and stiffen her shoulders. She had a team to console, because heaven knew Coach wasn't going to do it well.

The team was already emptying from the dugout, gathering in a small huddle just to the left of it. Maka could see them cast sullen glances towards the still-screaming and cheering Flyers. With a sigh, she trudged her way over towards her team, slowly removing her batting helmet as she went. Kirk was waiting for her near third base, and the catcher wrapped his arm around her, using the small bit of difference in their height to pull her in close in a semi-hug.

"Oi, Maks, good game," the catcher told her quietly as he tugged on one of her braided pigtails.

Maka huffed a laugh. "Yeah, same to you, Rung. Just sucks that we weren't able to take them all on to the World Series."

"We did our best - _th_ _ey_ did there best. Tell 'em."

The catcher gave her a gentle push towards the group of their teammates, all in varying states of emotion.

The younger players were subtly trying to wipe their eyes on their clean uniforms, lower lips wobbly; they avoided even glancing in the direction their seniors. The older players who, like Maka and Kirk, would be leaving the League, stood nearly shoulder to shoulder, faces stony. Of all the players, they had had their hopes the highest, had believed whole-heartedly that they would be able to make it all the way through finals - that they would be the ones representing the US in the World Series.

Maka ran her hand over her face. Then, with a deep breath, she stepped into the circle. A quick glance around confirmed her original suspicion that Coach wouldn't be there - which suited her just fine; he'd only done so much for their team.

"Everyone-" Maka started, but as 13 pairs of eyes turned and focused on her, expectant, she choked up. Needing the physical comfort, she dropped her batting helmet at her feet and held her arms open wide. "Everyone, bring it in."

The sniffles increased, but the team as a whole pretended not to notice. Arms linked around shoulders, heads were tucked in close. The body heat was almost unbearable in the late afternoon sun, but the feeling of a trusted teammate tucked under their arm was what the team needed more than anything at that moment.

When Maka spoke again, her voice was rough and quiet. "Guys - you all, _we all_ played hard today. No one could say we didn't put 120% effort into our game today, and I'm - I'm so proud of you all."

Blake, tucked in close on Maka's right, groaned obnoxiously. " _Ewww,_ Maks, your emotion's gonna infect me!" He squeezed her shoulder as he said it, and Maka couldn't keep a small smile off her face as the team tittered around them. If Blake's voice was a little more gruff than usual, everyone pretended not to notice.

"Shove it, Bacilio," Maka snarled half-heartedly, purposely butchering the pronunciation of Blake's real name.

She cleared her throat. "As I was saying - I couldn't be more proud of all the effort y'all gave today. I won't lie to you guys and say that I'm not sad we didn't make it on to the next round. But I'm not sad about losing the game; that would be unfair to the Flyers and, more importantly, that would be unfair to you." Maka was finding her groove, stealing some phrases from the peptalks she'd heard her father give. "It's been a gift getting to play with you guys this year. If there was any team I would want to make it this far in the World Series with, it would be y'all. Thanks for all the sweat and energy y'all poured into practice and teams. It wasn't always easy - God, do I know it wasn't always easy - but y'all stuck with it and, just, yeah: Thanks, I guess."

There was a moment of quiet, and then Harvey Éclair, in his dry voice, spoke up. "You started so strong, Albarn - I was tearing up there once, I think -" the team laughed at that, thinking of straight-faced, composed Harv shedding a tear. "And you finish your speech like _that_?"

Hiro, never one to miss an opportunity to tease Maka, jumped in next. "God, honestly. I mean, if your goal was to cheer us up, you only kind of made it. I don't care about the game anymore, but I think I might cry because of how pathetic that speech was."

Maka scowled, face heating up. She'd thought she'd done pretty well on her speech, all things considered. But she knew the boys were just joking around, and it had brought smiles and laughs to the huddle, so she could only begrudge them a little.

"You talk big now, Hiro, you jerk, but I saw you shed a tear or two during my pathetic little speech." She aimed a kick across the huddle at the Japanese- American boy grinning at her.


	2. High School

The night before her first high school baseball game, Maka didn't sleep a wink. The red numbers on her alarm clock stared steadily back at her; she'd watched those numbers advance until they showed a respectable time she could fling her sheets back and shower the exhaustion off. The school day had passed even more slowly, the minute hand ticking agonizingly slowly around the clock face. Maka was sure she was going to die or pass out or puke or _something_ before 2:30 rolled around and she could escape from the suffocating classrooms for the fresh air of the field. But now that it was time for her to get outside, almost time for her to step on the mound, almost time to officially begin the fall ball season, she was so nervous she could puke.

Maka nervously untucked and re-tucked her jersey in, not happy with the way the wrinkles were falling. She was just about to pull the pinstriped shirt back out again for one more attempt when a gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder. Deep blue eyes met hers in the grimy locker room mirror.

"It's perfect as it is, Maka," Tsubaki Nakatsukasa said, characteristically gentle smile crinkling her delicate nose.

"Yeah, seriously," Liz Thompson said, sauntering up to the mirror. The captain of the Death City High School softball team leaned in to smudge her already-smudged eyeliner. "They're all just stupid boys, anyway; they won't notice or care whether your shirt is properly tucked in or not."

"Besides, you're, like, naturally super-duper cute, Maks!" Patty exclaimed, bouncing up to her fellow freshman. Her practice jersey was still unbuttoned, and the shockingly neon pink of the girl's sports bra was nearly blinding under the fluorescents. The younger sister of the calm, cool, and collected Liz Thompson, Patty couldn't have been more different than her sister. She pushed her lower lip out in a charming little pout. "I'm sad you won't be playing on our team, though. Summer camp was fun when you showed."

Liz thumped her sister on the head gently. "Somebody's gotta show those boys that girls can play baseball, too, and there's no one better than our Maka to do that." The senior gave Maka a sidelong glance. "She'll show them that - _actually_ \- girls play baseball better, right?"

Tsubaki hummed in agreement, giving Maka's shoulder a comforting squeeze and filling Maka's nervous heart with warmth. She'd known Tsubaki and Liz - and Patty, by extension - for years, since they'd started the team as freshmen - perks of being the softball coach's daughter. They'd been there for her through all the ups and down of surviving middle school: From getting her period for the first time at a summer training camp, to having her first crush on a jerk of a teammate, to holding her when she'd cried her eyes out over losing the World Series.

And knowing that the girls she looked up to held so much confidence in her - well, it would be a lie if she said it didn't put a little iron in her spine, didn't send a little surge of adrenaline through her veins before her first game of high school baseball.

Maka smiled gratefully at the three girls gathered around her. She'd just opened her mouth to tell them so when the locker door burst open, slamming against the cement block walls. A few of the girls left in the locker room squealed, clutching their uniforms close for modesty; one even lunged for her bat and raised it threateningly before seeing who'd charged in. Standing there, hands on his hips, teal hair wild, and a rag tied over his eyes, was Maka's sorry excuse for a best friend.

"MAKA!" he yelled, voice echoing around the now-silent locker room. "Get your slow ass out here, _chica_ ; we're all waitin' for you."

Liz and Patty exchanged looks, matching wicked smiles spreading across their faces. Immediately, Tsubaki reached out to grab onto one of them, most likely thinking they were going to head toward the blue-haired idiot standing in the doorway. Patty got the jump on her however, using skills acquired through something Maka was sure she didn't want to know to slip around the Japanese girl and grab her wrists in a hold.

"Wha-" Tsubaki started, but Liz laid a finger on her lips with a wink. Patty mirrored her sister's action on Tsubaki's mouth; blue eyes widened in fear.

The senior sashayed up to Blake, hips swinging even though the freshman couldn't see her with his blindfold on. Tsubaki, pushed from behind by Patty, followed her captain. She looked moderately concerned - concerned because there was no saying what Liz would do; moderately because, well, she _had_ known Liz for four years.

"Maka? You're in here, right?" Blake asked, head tilted to the side but feet still planted in the locker room doorway. "Why isn't anyone answering? I didn't, like, hit anyone, right? Look, sorry about the door, but it really wasn't my fault. I mean, it sorta was, 'cause I, like, kicked it and shit, but it really wasn't. That idiot Clay pushed me from the back-"

An outraged cry sounded from the hallway, "Blake, you bastard!"

"Suck it, Clay. And so I really ended up kicking it harder than I meant to. But y'see - not my fault. So, like, could someone say something…? I like talking as much as the next guy but-"

"Blake," Tsubaki started at Patty urging - a poke in the side which made the boy's name come out as more of a squeak than anything - but was cut off by Liz.

The tall blonde motioned for Patty to push Tsubaki forward at the same time that she drawled, "God, just do it already you big baby."

Then, quick as a flash, as though she practiced ambushing people like this, Liz put a careful hand on Blake's shoulder and kissed him on the cheek, cutting off his bewildered, "What?"

By the time Blake wrangled off his blindfold, Tsubaki was standing red-faced and alone in front of him; Liz and Patty were trying to stifle giggles and look casually off to the side so Blake didn't notice them. Not that the blue-haired boy had eyes for anyone but the Japanese girl in front of him.

"B-B-Baki?" He asked in disbelief, his face turning the same color as Tsubaki's. She, on the other hand, just stood there, frozen, seemingly too stunned to deny it or laugh - or anything. Maka would have stepped in to help out both of her friends, but she was too busy choking on laughter in the corner at the expression on Blake's face.

Liz seemed to take Tsubaki's blatant discomfort and confusion as her cue, swooping in and throwing an arm around her pitcher. "Well, it's been real, Black Star," she said, using the nickname he'd been begging people to call him since he'd thought it up early in their Intermediate League days. "But we've got practice to go to, and you've got a game. Try and win it, yeah? Maybe Tsu'll give you another kiss." Liz winked and mockingly blew him a kiss as she pushed past him, laughing. The rest of the girls - now completely buttoned up, with duffles slung over shoulders -followed, Patty skipping and giggling.

Maka could hear Tsubaki protesting the whole way down the hallway, and bad as she felt for both her friends, she couldn't deny that the light-hearted joking was exactly what she needed to kill her butterflies. She'd have to apologize to Tsu later for leaving her stranded, though.

"C'mon, Blake." She said, patting his shoulder as she walked past. "Ox'll yell at us if we're late again; especially today."

Clay fell in step with Maka as she passed. The moment he made eye contact with her, the two of them burst out laughing, both knowing exactly what had gone down in the locker room. Maka glanced back over her shoulder at the slightly wobbling Blake, and had to wipe tears from her eyes. She had a pretty good idea what was going through Blake's mind - and it definitely wasn't the upcoming game. Clay nudged Maka's shoulder, setting them both off on another round of giggles.

Still in a bit of a daze, Blake Hoshizoku followed, most likely wondering if today was the day when God finally smiled down on him and answered his prayers.

* * *

Soul Evans sighed as he slammed his locker shut, and then jumped in surprise. Leaning casually against the neighboring locker, smarmy grin on his handsome face, was Jamie Giriko. A junior on the baseball team, he had apparently made it his life's mission to make his freshman teammate's life as uncomfortable as possible. Clutching his pounding heart, Soul glared at the first baseman.

"So, are you, like, perpetually ornery, or do I just bring out the best in you?" Jamie said, using his best pick-up voice.

"Fuck off, man." Soul snapped. He slung his backpack over his shoulder as he turned on his heel, hoping the textbook-laden pack would hit the older boy in the process.

Giriko easily dodged the bag and threw an arm over Soul's shoulder. "Come on, the stick outta yer ass and have a li'l fun for once. Or are ya too rich, too good for us plebs?"

He whispered the question into Soul's ear, evil glint in his squinty eyes. Soul wished he had a bat with him, so he could brain the older boy with it; at this point, he wasn't even sure he would care if it resulted in ejection from the team.

" 'Course not. 'S'not like I care 'bout any o' that stuff, anyway," Soul muttered. His hand was clenched into a fist in his pocket; punching Jamie in the face would feel almost as good as hitting him with a bat, Soul was sure.

The junior burst into laughter. "Well," Giriko exclaimed, cheerfully clapping Soul on the shoulder. "It's been real, Soulie boy. Can't wait for the bus ride!" He winked and then spun gracefully, whistling as he swaggered down the hallway to his classroom.

Soul groaned. Besides Giriko being an annoying ass like usual, the game that afternoon was the whole reason for the sour attitude Jamie had (rightfully) called him on. When he'd received the game list at the end of the summer camp, Soul'd quickly scanned the chart looking for a specific school district. It had been the beginning of a very shitty evening when he's read "Death City High School" in bold at the top of the page.

Three months later, and he'd still been holding out on to the hope that maybe she'd moved schools like he had.

When he'd gotten the news that Evans Records was opening a new branch in Las Vegas, and that it'd be headed by his brother, Soul had jumped on the opportunity to leave stuffy New England and his unbearable family home for the wide open skies and experiences offered in Las Vegas. Of course, his parents hadn't been overly fond of the idea of their youngest moving across the country from them, but with Wes advocating for him and with the buried disinterest Soul knew they harbored for him, he had gotten his way in the end.

It was only after he had loaded the last box into the moving truck that Soul remembered that Nevada was where _she_ was - but the chance that Las Vegas and Death City were anywhere near each other was so miniscule, he figured, that it wouldn't affect his life in the slightest.

Well. How wrong he'd been.

To add the cherry to the top of the sundae, he'd discovered early on that Death City just so _happened_ to be Eibon Academy's biggest rival - one stretching back for generations.

Fuckin' great. Soul was sure there was some saying about fate that he could quote, but he really didn't want to bring destiny into the equation. If video games had taught him anything, it was that destiny just tended to fuck things up.

So, the whole school day before their first game of the season against the DCHS Reapers, Soul's stomach was a nervous knot for reasons he couldn't even put a name to. Was he worried _she_ was going to yell at him for the Flyers getting knocked out of the World Series in the final round two years ago? He didn't think that even Albarn would be that petty.

Soul tapped his pencil against his lips as he thought the answer over, and he could feel the bewildered stares of his classmates. Soul knew what they were thinking - the slacker was finally paying attention in class? Was the world coming to an end? Did he get threatened with expulsion? - and it vaguely pissed him off. It wasn't like he'd _wanted_ to come to this stupid prep school; it had been the only condition outlined by his parents before he left.

Whatever. They were the ones shelling out twenty-five grand a year for him to get straight Ds. His brother was always on his case about studying and doing his homework, but Soul had his priorities straight: There were a lot of games that needed beaten, and no one else but him was gonna do it.

Soul sent a halfhearted glare towards his nearest seatmates - they quickly dropped their eyes to the algebra problems Soul was supposed to be solving - and went back to pondering what exactly was it about Maka Albarn that had stuck with him for these past two years, that could turn him from cool and collected to spouting lame comebacks - "Don't forget to bring the tissues"? He still cringed over that, all these years later. He put his pencil about his upper lip, pursing his mouth to hold it there in a sort of pensive moustache. He thought, and wiggled the pencil back and forth. Then he stopped and thought again. Wiggled the pencil. Thought. Then it struck him, and he dropped his chair back to all fours.

Her eyes, of all the fuckin' things.

God damn. He leaned his head back and exhaled a lungful of air. So lame.

Not that he could really blame himself, or that anyone would blame him. Anyone who had been on the receiving end of that unwavering gaze would know exactly how it looked through to your very soul, finding your faults and insecurities, your pride and strengths, and dissecting them with a cold precision.

He hadn't forgotten what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that smile, either. The only light had been that cheap, yellow motel light, and yet, she'd still managed to be radiant when she'd given him that shy smile on the stairs.

Soul scrubbed a hand through his hair. The girl wasn't even _there_ , and she was turning him into some lame jerk.

It was a welcome relief when the minute hand clicked to the top of the hour, and he was able to shove his books into his bag and slip out of the classroom just as the announcement clicked on for the baseball team's dismissal. Soul felt like he could finally breathe, away from the lecturing teachers, headed toward something that would silence his thoughts. Because if he kept going down that particular train of thought- about _her_ \- there was no telling how much more he would come to hate himself.

Although, the hour-long bus ride to Death City just might be enough to make him hate his teammates.

Soul thought he'd gotten lucky by snagging a seat next to a fellow freshman benchwarmer, but of course that would have been too convenient. All it took was Giriko looming over the younger boy, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder, and the kid went scampering. Soul looked after him with absolute disgust, before the first baseman threw himself into the seat with a grin.

Yeah, he was going to have a headache by the time they unloaded.

"So, Soulie, you fix that attitude problem of yours yet?"

Soul made a point of sliding his headphones over his ears and turning up the volume. Even with the noise-canceling technology and the loudest rock he had in his - admittedly extensive - music library, he still couldn't drown out Giriko's obnoxiousness. Not willing to admit defeat, the other boy leaned in close to Soul and started talking as loud as he could, most likely assuming that if he tried hard enough for long enough, some of his words would get through.

And damn him, he was right.

"-do you hate Death City so much, huh? You got an ex-girlfriend there? Not that anyone worth two licks would even be willing to go out with your gloomy ass. So that's out-"

Soul rolled his eyes and turned the volume all the way up. He was blowing out his eardrums, Soul was sure, but at least he didn't have to listen to Giriko's chatter anymore. Eventually the junior would get bored when Soul didn't respond and turn his attention on to someone or something else. Soul didn't really care what his teammate did, so long as he left him alone.

It was surprising, though, that Giriko was as well-liked by a majority of the upperclassmen as he was. Soul thought it probably had something to do with how good of a ball player the kid was. Giriko had a lot of natural talent, but he also put in a lot of effort at practices - not that it was entirely of his own will. When your tuition bills getting paid is directly connected to your performance in the games, it changes the natural tendencies of a person.

Giriko may have been a lazy douchebag, but he was almost like a different douchebag out on the field, from what Soul had heard. Out there, it was all about the game, and all about winning for him. So he was like...an obsessive douchebag? Soul wasn't sure, but he knew that he didn't mind the kid when he was standing on the field.

In fact, the closer Eibon Academy's bus got to Death City, the more still and introverted Giriko became. When he was like this, focused on the upcoming match, Soul could almost stand him.

While the lack of Giriko's taunts was nice, Soul almost missed the distraction they offered. His stomach was winding itself into tighter and tighter knots. What if he ran into her there? There were three possible options for whether or not he would see her. Either she wasn't playing baseball anymore and had switched to softball like a lot of girls who played in the younger age brackets of the Little League, or she hadn't made the team and so she wasn't playing baseball anymore. Of course, the chance that either of these being true - as much as his nerves would have liked them to be, because that meant he wouldn't see her - was almost none.

But the last, most likely option - that she was still playing baseball and that she had made Death City High's team - seemed to be the most likely. And if the worst-case _were_ true, and he _did_ see her there ... Soul thought he might puke. What would he say to her? Would she even remember him? _That_ would be embarrassing. Soul snorted at the thought, imagining him bounding up to her, excited, and the blank stare she would probably give him.

It _had_ been almost two years since they had seen each other, after all. And it wasn't like they were friends; they'd talked to each other for, like, one day - not even that, actually.

Soul sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. It was totally uncool how stressed he was over the chance that he could run into a girl he played one game against two years ago. He froze as a thought struck him. What if - what if she didn't even live in Death City any more? What if she'd ended up going to a different high school, and he was worrying about all of this for _nothing_. Soul's thoughts were so tangled, he was starting to contradict himself; did he want to see her, or didn't he?

It was a low moment when Soul wished that Giriko would start talking again.

Soul leaned his head against the bus window, wincing a bit as his headphones dug uncomfortably into his head. A glance at Giriko showed the boy engrossed in his own thoughts, chin resting on forearms resting on knees pulled to his chest, and so Soul deemed it safe to drop his headphones down around his neck.

Watching the desert roll by outside the window was something Soul wasn't sure he'd get used to. Rivers and grass and reaching trees - that was what he thought of when he thought of home, but he also wasn't sure if he'd ever truly been able to call that frigid place home.

Soul shook himself and forced his mind away from Connecticut and back to baseball; it'd always been his safety net. If Albarn _were_ to be on DCHS's team - he shoved down the uncomfortable feeling that dug its claws into his belly - and if she were to somehow be good enough to make starting line her Freshman year - which, as he remembered, she was - Soul wondered if that same catcher from two years ago would form the other half of her battery. If it was the same 11 catching for her, they would have a real - real good, real tough, just plain _real_ \- game to play.

Not that the JV couldn't handle it, Soul was sure. The Eibon Tarantulas JV was comprised almost entirely of freshmen, who were all extremely good for their age. As they should be, Soul thought with a wry twist of his lips. They were all scouted out from the various Las Vegas middle school and League teams and brought to the Academy on scholarship; the school wouldn't waste precious money on mediocre players. No, alone, the individual players were a force to be reckoned with - it was when they played together that the Achilles' heel showed.

There were too many conflicting egos on the team, each boy used to being the star player. And when you shove a whole bunch of inflated heads together, it was no surprise that they'd bump into each other. Of course, as the catcher - even though he was a freshman, new to the school and to the area - it was _his_ responsibility to bring them into a cohesive unit.

It was exhausting, to say the least.

It wasn't all bad, though; the different batteries he formed really weren't that bad, all things considered. There was some promise in the starting pitcher, sophomore Noah Eibon, but he was a creepy dude - and that was putting it nicely. Apparently, his great-great-great-grandfather had founded the school – and the kid never let anyone forget it. It was always, "my three-times-great grandfather this, my great-great-great grandfather that," sunken eyes looking to see if his dead as fuck relations brought him any awe and respect. All it did, though, was annoy anyone who had to listen to it to the point where they seriously considered offing the kid.

No one needed to know that much about someone else's rotting ancestors. Shit, the descendent didn't even need to know that much.

And the short freshman that always followed Noah around was even worse. Soul couldn't remember what position the kid was supposed to play or even his real name - even though Soul was _pretty sure_ that the mousy kid was in his Freshman Earth and Space Science - just knew that everyone called him Gopher because he did whatever Noah asked. He looked like a five-year-old on Christmas morning whenever Noah bossed him around, but if anyone asked him to, for example, throw them a water bottle, the kid flipped shit.

They were a freaky duo and Soul tried to stay as far away from the both of them outside of practices as he could.

As the scrub brush faded to street signs and storefronts, the boys all crowded around the windows, excited despite themselves. Soul leaned his head against the window, taking in the scenery. He had to admit – it was a really cool town. The buildings were all painted gaudy colors, something usually seen in beach towns, but which worked for Death City as well. A grotesquely laughing moon or sun was painted on almost all of the buildings, as either the focus of a mural, or just under the gables on a high-peaked roof. The motif was familiar to Soul, but he couldn't quite place a finger on where he'd seen it before.

The bus squeaked to a stop at a red light, and Soul nudged the meditating Giriko beside him. "You know what those things are about?"

"Hmm?" the older boy asked, cracking one eye open. "Oh, those. Fuckin' weird, right? It's officially somethin' to do with a tribute to some famous artist that got their start here, I guess. Was like a graffiti artist before people started buyin' their work. But my Granny said it started as the worship symbol for some cult that used to rule here - Shibusen or some shit. I dunno, dude, but I think it's creepy."

"Yeah," Soul replied noncommittally, mind already far away back in Connecticut. He knew he'd seen them somewhere before. His mom had hosted one of those art raffle charity events that rich folk with nothing better to do host, and that artist's work had been all over the gallery. Apparently no one knew who the artist was; he or she just went by the moniker Shinigami. Knowing now that the artist hailed from Death City, Soul couldn't help but roll his eyes at the artist name: Anyone who'd ever played an Indie game would know that Shinigami meant god of death in Japanese. Death City - Death God - damn pretentious.

Although, it wasn't as pretentious as the symbolism his parents' friends had been applying to Shinigami's works. They'd said it stood for death and dying and redemption. Soul had sneered at their interpretation then, and he would do it again. It was obvious to him what the artist was showing – madness. The madness a prisoner, a soldier, an unwanted child feels: bloodthirsty, desperate – unchained.

Soul sighed, bringing his headphones back up and drowning himself in music again. The bus lurched forward gently as they began to move again.

* * *

Yeah, Frank Oxley had a lot of words to say to the three JV starters when they'd rushed through the door to the team locker room, though most of it went in one ear and out the other. The self-appointed "Head of the Freshmen" had a tendency for long-winded speeches about nothing in particular, and the team had quickly gotten used to ignoring the majority of what he said.

Sure, the kid was smart, no one could or would deny that. He was just as annoying as he was intelligent.

Maka heard something about them being a disgrace to baseball players everywhere (she didn't quite get the reasoning behind that particular statement), he couldn't believe that they ignored his last warning (because they hadn't been listening, duh, Ox), and would they please just get onto the damn field? Well. They'd heard the last one loud and clear.

It was all about the selective listening when dealing with Ox, Maka had learned early on in her relationship with bespectacled boy.

They were in the middle of warm-ups when the other team pulled past the field, their charter bus screaming of wealth and superiority. All eyes were fixed on it as Reapers slowly came out of their stretches.

This was it. Thirty minutes was all that stood between them and the first pitch of the season. Almost all of the JV players looked at each other with nervous smiles - except for Blake, who seemed to be over the temporary shock of Liz/Tsubaki kissing his cheek, and was all but jumping for joy.

Maka was glad that he had recovered enough to be like his old self once again.

"All right," Justin Law, captain of both the Varsity and Junior Varsity teams called. "Y'all can look away now; I think they're intimidated enough. After all, no one looks a Reaper in the eye—"

"-AND LIVES TO TELL ABOUT IT!" the team roared in unison. Chills erupted over Maka's skin as she yelled the chant at the top of her lungs. She'd always wanted to be able to say this cheer, to get to experience the thrill, the bloodlust it must inspire. But actually being able to scream it out, next to the boys she'd sweated and bled and puked with for the past four months, was more exciting than she could ever have imagined. There was more adrenaline pumping through her veins than she was sure was healthy. It took her back to the Little League World Series playoffs, except this was a different place, a different feeling, with different people.

They were a team. They were her team.

And death gods ate spiders for breakfast.

* * *

Soul literally was going to puke.

He'd thought he'd seen a flash of a blonde braid tucked under a cap when the bus had driven past the field, but as the Tarantulas trudged across the school drive to the ball field, he was able to see and confirm it for certain.

Unless Death City had an overabundance of girls playing baseball, that was her. The catcher's heart pounded in his chest.

He tried to be subtle about his staring, so as not to attract the attention of any of his teammates - to her or to himself. Not that he needed to worry about them paying attention to him, though, as he soon discovered; there was long blonde hair attached to a girl on the field, and very little but that fact mattered to the hormone-driven boys. A couple of the DCHS players were still stretching out - Albarn included - and Soul thought he might die. She'd grown up considerably over the past two years, and her pinstriped uniform fit her in all the right places. Soul huffed a short laugh when he saw she was still wearing her socks over her pants. It lengthened her legs, drew attention to her calves and - he wasn't looking.

A sharp elbow dug into his ribs. Yelping, Soul automaticity jumped and aimed a punch in the general direction of the elbow. His fist met air only, but got an eyeful of Giriko's obnoxious smirk.

"'Ey, Soulie boy, is that," he gestured toward where Albarn was bending over, palms flat on the grass, bright smile flashing in a laugh at something the boy next to her said, "the reason you almost pissed yourself when you heard that we were playing DC?"

Soul aimed a glare at his teammate, but his face was hot, and, if Giriko's cackle was anything to go by, the blush kind of ruined the tough look he was going for.

"Literally - fuck off," Soul snarled to the first baseman. "Besides, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Jamie casually tucked Soul's head into the crook of his arm and dug his knuckles into the tuft of hair remaining after his mother's forced hair cut. "What was that, brat?" the Junior said, vicious amusement coloring his voice. "Were ya sassin' me? Were ya sassin' Giriko, you little piece of -"

The boy broke off mid-sentence, letting go of Soul's head as he went. Rubbing the sore spot, the catcher straightened to see the coach's assistant Giriko had the hots for holding him by the ear. The first baseman looked like he was in pain - and enjoying it; a disturbed shiver ran down Soul's spine.

"Jamie," Arianne Gorgon said, light voice slow with disappointment. "If you hurt our catcher, whatever will the JV do for this game? Really now, you brute; I know you don't have a lot of brains, but you should use them every once in awhile."

"He was bein' a disrespectful brat, though, Coach Gorgon!" Giriko protested, rising up onto his toes as Gorgon pulled harder on his ear.

The coaching assistant clicked her tongue at him. "You don't use your brains, and you don't use your ears... really, Jamie, why do you have them?"

Soul shifted uncomfortably at the submissive look on his brash teammate's face. He hiked his duffle higher up on his shoulder and cleared his throat, not wanting to stick around any longer than he had to. "Uh, if you don't mind, Coach Gorgon, I'm gonna - uh -" he gestured vaguely in the direction of the dugout, where a majority of the JV team was already starting their stretches.

"Oh, do go on, dear," Miss Gorgon said. "And good luck out there. I know Coach Ash can get a little," she paused, seeming to try and find a polite word to describe the head coach, "intense. But you are very good at what you do, so just trust in your instinct and I know you'll do great." The buxom woman smiled benignly down at Soul, and he smiled awkwardly back before dashing off in his clumsy escape.

Coach Gorgon was nice, but there was just something about her than was extraordinarily unsettling to him. He didn't know if it was the bottomless eyes hidden under layers of heavy eye makeup or the fact that she was so nice that it couldn't be real; all the catcher knew was that she was good at her job, and James Giriko was obsessed with her.

Soul shook his head to clear his thoughts; the last thing he needed to be thinking about on game day - especially when he was playing her once more - was his teammate and his coach's relationship, or lack thereof. Unconsciously, Soul's eyes slid back over towards the Reapers' side of the field just in time to see Albarn burst into laughter at something her blue-haired teammate had said. She slapped the boy's shoulder, utterly comfortable, and Soul looked away, something he didn't want to name twisting in his gut.

One of his teammates clapped him comradically on the shoulder, and Soul glanced over at who it was before giving an uncomfortable smile. Noah Eibon stood there, lips stretched almost grotesquely across his face in a semblance of a smile. Gopher hovered near the sophomore's shoulder; Soul could have sworn the boy was shivering in his excitement.

"Nervous, old chap?" Noah asked, and the high-class affectation in his voice made Soul wish he was literally anywhere else but right there in that dugout.

"Not - not really? I mean, I guess. Was just - was just on my way out to stretch," the catcher blurted, all but pushing past the pitcher onto the field. Soul slipped into a small gap between third baseman Crona Gorgon and shortstop Rocky. They were another weird pair that Soul didn't often like to deal with, but they were a hell of a lot better than Old Chap and Shivery back in the dugout.

The catcher caught his left arm in the crook of his right elbow, and pulled it across his chest. The group was already counting off six when he joined, and Soul tightened his grip, stretching his tricep more.

* * *

Maka stood at attention, hat over her heart, while the national anthem played on the loudspeakers. She loved the school's enthusiasm for baseball; it matched her own love of the game. The two sets of bleachers that lined either side of the baselines were about half full of students decked head-to-toe with the school's black; they'd called for the first game to be a black-out, and Maka could barely keep her heart from racing at the sea of black shirts covering the bleachers. From experience, Maka knew that the bleachers and any open grass around them would be completely full of spectators during the Varsity match - both because it was a game against Eibon Academy and because it was the first match of the season. But even though the stands weren't full yet, the crowd's enthusiasm was still infectious.

Blake, never one for staying still and quiet at the best of times, was all but bouncing on his toes. He was ready to go, ready to show off how much he'd improved during summer training. The attention would be on him out in center field, and he would soak it up, Maka knew.

As the national anthem came to an end and the announcers began talking, Maka shoved her hat back onto her head. Game time.

The starting players stood in a line in front of the dugout, hands clasped behind their backs and feet shoulder width apart, at attention while their fellow JV teammates filed back behind the cage. This was the nine starters' moment to shine, and the benchwarmers would respect it, even while brimming with jealousy, wanting to be out there part of the row of proud teenagers. Maka, shoulder brushing Blake's on her left, could feel the centerfielder all but vibrating in his excitement; Kirk, on her right, was the complete opposite: still, with his chest thrown out, proud.

"Now, help me welcome the home team to the field!" Kid Mortimer - Principal's son, and President and Founder of the Broadcasting club - exclaimed into the microphone, to the loud cheers of the crowd.

To the sound of whistles and claps, the nine players took their first step off the white line together, then jogged off to their respective positions. Hiro clapped her shoulder with a grin as he passed her on his way out to left field, and Maka smiled back at him. Several of the boys who'd stood behind her during the Little League World Series were on her team again, and while she loved having a new dynamic with the new players, it was comforting to know that Blake, Hiro, and Kirk still had her back.

Kirk had the shortest distance to go, and when Maka turned on the pitcher's mound to face the catcher, he was already standing there, big grin stretched across his face as he tossed the baseball up and down.

Maka returned his smile with a confident smirk of her own; the ball smacked into her upheld glove with a satisfying sound, and the game was all but begun. The nerves that had plagued her all day were ancient history as soon as her fingers wrapped around familiar leather.

Kirk settled down into his crouch, glove centered in the middle of the strike zone. Warm ups were so nice, Maka thought as she nodded her agreement to the pitch and started her wind up. It started with nice and easy tosses; she missed the straight fastballs when Kirk started calling more complicated pitches - like the low, inside curve.

The catcher tossed the ball back to her, and Maka pursed her lips as Kirk called for that exact pitch. The sign was different than their Little League days - two fingers together, pointing straight down (low); three fingers, separated (curve); pinky pointing out (inside, lefty) - but Maka's frustration with that pitch remained the same. She'd drilled it at least a million times in the two years since the World Series, but she was still only able to nail it 75 percent of the time.

And as Kirk lunged for the wild pitch, it seemed that Maka's control wasn't quite on point yet that day. She glanced towards the lead-off batter, number 25 - a squat, dark skinned boy - who was tensed up, and twirling his bat as he waited for her next warm-up pitch.

The rest of her practice throws went basically where Kirk called them, and Maka was feeling pretty good when the first player stepped into the right side of the batter's box. She stood, body turned to the side, right hand spinning the ball tucked into her glove, as she waited for 25 to finish digging out his stance. All set, he lowered his right hand, and Kirk sent Maka the sign for an inside fastball.

The catcher settled into his stance, one bent knee rooting himself to the ground. With a deep breath, Maka pulled her left knee to her chest and then released her wind up. She'd gotten more efficient at her delivery, after studying and practicing and studying again how the Flyers' pitcher Hoshizoku had been able to have such an accurate pitch with such a slow delivery.

Maka hadn't been able to discover how the Japanese pitcher had managed to be so accurate in his throw, but the constant repetition had helped her speed and efficiency, at the very least. Fastballs especially were easy for her to whip out, well, _fast_. Out of her windup, she lunged forward, right knee nearly scraping the ground as her right arm bent at an awkward angle.

Number 25 was a leftie batter, and Maka's cross-body fastball unnerved him. He flinched back away from the ball, even though it remained well within the strike zone. The _smack_! of baseball in leather echoed in the quiet field for a moment, before the cheers and clapping started again. Maka's chest swelled with pride; the first pitch of the first game of the season - and her first high school game - was a strike. The pitcher chewed on her lower lip as she caught the return toss and waited for the batter to be ready. She really hoped the rest of the game stayed that way.

One strike and two balls later, though, and it seemed like she might've hoped too soon. 25 had been up to bat for almost 5 minutes now, and while much of that was the batter killing time, trying to play mind games with the pitcher, it still didn't bode well for Maka's performance. She wanted to be able to show her school three-up-three-down innings, as she had during Little League, but 25 just didn't want to be struck out.

Maka wiped her sweating upper lip on the sleeve of her jersey; it was easy to tire out quickly on such an unseasonably hot day, and all of the players would have to be careful about heat stroke and dehydration.

Kirk pointed his pinky in towards the batter's knee, and Maka agreed. An inside, just-barely-in-the-strike-zone pitch would be their best bet to secure that last inning.

Maka wasn't sure where she had picked up on the bad habit of taking a deep breath every time she wound-up to pitch, but the middle of a wind up wasn't the time to worry about it.

After all, it was only a _bad_ habit when they lost a game; baseball players were known for being superstitious, and Maka had no intention on breaking the mold if the mold was right.

The pitcher couldn't help her victorious grin when she watched the ball smack into Kirk's glove, just under 25's ambitious swing; he was swinging for the fences, Maka thought, but all he got was the dugout. Maka allowed herself a small, victorious smile at her first out of her high school career. The stands were cheering - probably relieved the freshman JV starter hadn't given up a base to the first batter; Maka was too, honestly.

Two more batters got up, and two more batters sat down, and the Reapers' pitcher was running high on adrenaline and success. Whooping, Blake jumped next to her, using her shoulder as a support, and nearly knocking her hat off in the process. The centerfielder started talking rapidly, and Maka wasn't exactly sure what he was saying, - although she did recognize a few Spanish words and a few Japanese words, the boy's mixed heritage showing through - but his energy at the very least was contagious.

* * *

The Reapers cleared the field relatively quickly, and the Tarantulas took their place. Soul had been on deck to bat after Rocky, and so he was still finishing putting on his gear while Gopher warmed up Noah. It was almost difficult to watch Albarn's pitch, to see how it had grown and developed and gotten better, knowing that he had Noah's boring, cookie-cutter pitch to look forward to.

Oh, sure - Noah was _very_ good at his position. He had a curve, a fast, and a slider (sometimes) at his disposal, although his control did leave something to be desired. If there was one thing Soul missed about Connecticut, it was Akane's unnaturally accurate control - or, more specifically, the catcher missed not having to lunge and jump and dive for wild pitches.

With a final check of his shin guards, Soul got to his feet and jogged his way out to home plate. The catcher nudged Gopher with the toe of his cleat, and the small boy leapt to his feet, an apology on his lips already.

"Thanks for covering for me," Soul said with a small smile. He felt bad for startling the poor kid so badly, and figured he could probably try and be nice to Gopher once in awhile.

The kid nodded, avoiding eye contact with Soul. With one last glance towards Noah, who was standing on the pitcher's mound with gloved hand loosely propped on his hip, Gopher shoved the baseball he was holding towards Soul and took off towards the dugout. The catcher looked after Gopher with a bemused, almost concerned expression, and then shook his head, tossed the ball back to Noah, and crouched down behind home plate.

The stands erupted in cheers when the Reapers' lead-off batter stepped up to the batter's box, and Soul looked the kid up and down as he settled into his stance. There was a lot that could be told about a batter from the way they stood in the box, Soul had discovered. Some stepped in like they owned the place, confident and with little pause or adjustment in stance or grip. Others were much more flighty; they constantly held their hand up for a time out, digging their cleats into the clay just to scrape their foot over that trench and start afresh. The former swung for the fence, always looking to knock the pitch out of the park; the latter, though, were hard to predict, unless you observed and watched for patterns with every at-bat.

This batter, lucky number thirteen - Eclair, the back of his white, pinstriped shirt said - was of the former kind. He didn't stand like a power hitter, though; his stance was relatively innocuous in comparison to some of the fence-swingers Soul had seen in his time. Thirteen held his bat up near the top of the leather grip, and suddenly Soul knew exactly what kind of batter he was.

Soul put down four fingers, then curled his middle back up and pointed his index finger towards his right cleat. Low slider, inside; Noah's eyebrows crawled into his hairline for a moment, but then fell back to their normal position as the pitcher nodded.

Not only was Noah one of the weirdest people Soul had ever met, but his windup was also one of the weirdest the catcher had ever seen. He pulled his knee up to his chest, like most people, but then he would straighten his lower leg so it formed a right angle, before stepping forward with that leg and whipping his arm out, wide, to the side; a sidewinder, with the most pompous and useless windup Soul had seen.

Soul held his glove steady and true in the same position though, and the catcher couldn't help the small smile when the ball smacked into his glove as the batter watched. He'd been right about thirteen; the boy held the bat loosely up near the top of the grip so that he could easily drop his grip on the bat, lengthening his reach and pulling the ball over along the first base line. Thirteen hadn't been expecting anyone to predict his trick, though. So when the ball came in on the inside of the strike zone, he'd frozen, unsure of what to do with his hands and with the bat.

As much as he would have liked to, Soul didn't think he'd get lucky on the same trick again.

Thirteen gave his bat a few practice swings, tapped it on the center of home plate, and then swung the bat back up to rest on his shoulder. He lowered his hand, and Soul dropped two fingers in an upside down peace sign. Noah nodded, did his ridiculous windup and delivery again, and pitched in a neat curve ball.

The batter swung for the fences, but only ended up overbalancing himself when he missed the ball. Eclair pursed his lips, adjusted his helmet, and put his bat back on his shoulder. He struck out on the third pitch, to boos and groans from the crowd that were music to Soul's ears.

Jumping to his feet, Soul whipped the baseball to second, who delivered it to first, from first to third, and back to the pitcher. Soul was just settling back down into his crouch when the crunch of cleats on clay directed his attention to the next batter up. His heart almost stopped when he saw Albarn standing there, face serious, fierce green eyes turned towards Noah.

Albarn stood in the batter's box like she was meant to be there; she held the bat like she didn't have a hand and her arm just continued on until it turned into an aluminum bat. She quickly found her stance and settled into it: Right leg planted, knee tensed and locked, bearing all her weight, and her leading foot twisted so that the toes of that foot pointed towards the toes of the other.

Her hands were centered in the exact middle of the bat's grip, and Soul had to smile and shake his head when he dropped down his mask and held down two fingers - the same call as he'd just made for the other player.

Thirteen and Albarn were different, though, because Albarn wasn't expecting or hoping for a certain pitch. So when the ball came in, low, slow, and falling fast, she was able to readjust her grip and her stance so that she could scoop it up and over the middle infielders. Soul was out of his crouch in milliseconds, just moments after Albarn took off towards first, bat abandoned a step away from home plate. The catcher ripped his mask from his face as he ran out along the far side of the first base line; he was there as insurance just in case centerfielder overthrew his toss to first. Usually, Soul's coverage wasn't needed there, but it was the general consensus that it was better to be safe than sorry.

The crowd was screaming; Soul could hear them behind him. The announcer was calmly and faithfully reporting the plays: No emotion betrayed whose side he was really on. "The ball is scooped up by centerfielder Ragnarock, who sends it on over to first with a very nice toss; Albarn's coming in fast, though - can she make it? _And_ \- it's close, but the ump calls her - _safe!_ "

The announcer couldn't keep a tiny bit of bias to creep into his voice as he called out safe, but Soul couldn't begrudge him it. He jogged back to home plate, and with a new ball tossed back to Noah, settled back into his squat.

With Albarn on first, increasing her lead-off by centimeters ever second, Noah looked nervous. He was constantly glancing over his shoulder at Albarn, was barely paying attention to the calls Soul was signing.

The blue-haired boy, 39 / Hoshizoku, read the back of his jersey - Soul wondered if he was somehow related to Akane - was a power hitter through and through. He was relatively solid, for a JV baseball player. In fact, Soul thought as he stood up and called time-out to the umpires, if someone had come up to him and told him that thirty-nine had once been a running back, he would have believed them.

The catcher jogged his way up the path to the pitching mound, and up there, he placed his left arm around Noah's shoulder and squeezed the back of his neck to get his attention. "Hey, Noah, what the _hell_ are you looking at, asshole?" Soul growled to his pitcher.

The boy tried to send Soul an imperious look, but Soul could feel him trembling under his hand. Soul sighed and loosened his hold a bit. Thinking back to the conversations he'd overheard Noah have with Gopher, Soul carefully phrased his statements in a way that snap Noah out of his funk. "Hey, man, what are you so scared about? Albarn? Because she hit your pitch? She's just a _girl_ ; aren't you the proud descendant of our school's magnificent founder? And you're just gonna let some scrawny little girl wreck _your_ game? C'mon, dude, this is baseball; people hit pitches, and it's your job as pitcher to buck up and strike 'em out the next time."

Soul saw the ump move up towards the pitcher's mound, signaling the end of the time-out. The catcher dropped his hand from Noah's neck and gave him a confident smile that the other boy weakly returned.

As he spun to head back towards home plate, Soul couldn't help but sneak a glance towards first. Albarn was chatting easily with Mizune, but when her eye caught Soul's, she froze mid-word, expression morphing from confusion to realization to shock before settling on a wide _smile_. Soul's heart lurched painfully in his chest, and he quickly turned his eyes away from the excitement on her face.

Albarn really was going to be the death of him.

* * *

Maka had been having a relatively nice chat with the first baseman, a small boy with surprisingly bright pink hair that didn't seem to match his mousy demeanor when any kind of coherent thought she might have had flew out the window the moment she locked eyes with the catcher. The catcher's stance and habits had seemed similar to the Flyer's Evans when she'd watched him from the dugout and on-deck circle, but the connection that it _was_ the Flyers' Evans hadn't been made until she saw those red eyes peeking out from under the backwards catcher's helmet.

Evans was here! Why was Evans here? And why couldn't she stop smiling? Was he blushing? Was _she_ blushing?

She smacked her cheeks, trying to bring herself back to the present - to the game, which was _kind of_ important? - but all she ended up doing was causing herself to sneeze from the dust she hadn't realized was on her hands. With a quick shake of her head, she tried to rattle Evans from her mind, refocusing her attention on the pitcher. Who was doing that absolutely ridiculous wind up again.

Hadn't anyone taught him it was first, stupid, and, second, _useless_? Evans should have at least tried to correct it. Evans - he was here! Maka's eyes slid past the pitcher to Evans, and she couldn't keep herself from smiling again.

The smack of a ball into Evans' glove brought Maka back to the game, and her face heated up; it was a good thing Blake had swung-and-missed, because Maka's foot was still firmly planted on first. Ox was yelling at her from his first base "coaching" position, nearly screaming _what was she doing?_

Quite frankly, Maka had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Had no idea why she was so excited to see Evans again, especially since he was wearing Eibon Academy's hated _maroon_. Her lip curled and the blind excitement died as quickly as it had started.

He was the enemy again. On the field, Evans was _nothing_.

Ox was still yelling; he had a right to be yelling, but Maka held up a hand to silence him, to tell him: She got it, now could he stop yapping?

As 74 prepped for his wind-up, Maka slid two feet away from the base, forearms propped on her upper thighs, motion tensed on her left leg - she was ready to run.

At the drop of the pitcher's shoulder to bring his knee up to his chest - committing him to the pitch for at least 15 seconds - Maka took off from first, cleats digging into soft clay and elbows tucked close. She spared one glance towards home when she reached the halfway point down the baseline, and bared her teeth as she added more speed to her sprint: The ball was just reaching Evans, and he was making a perfect transition to get her out at second. Ten feet, and the second baseman was focusing on the ball, not Maka. She dropped into a slide, knee tucked under her, body angled slightly back so she could better dodge any attempts to tag her out.

The ball was hitting into second's glove and he was dropping his left knee to spin and tag her out. 2 feet. 1 1/2 feet. The glove was coming down to smack her thigh. She pulled her leg free just in time, leaving her safe but causing her to lose all momentum. Maka's desperate evasion left the second baseman staring at her in confusion for just a moment before he was diving after her twisting body. Her fingers were already scrabbling towards the base, though, and by the time glove and ball landed heavily on her side, Maka already had an elbow hooked over the bag.

There was a moment of silence in the stadium, her own and the second baseman's panting all she could hear, and then the stands were erupting in cheers and the ump was calling safe and even Kid had forgotten his "professional neutrality" and was chattering excitedly into the loudspeaker about how great the play was.

The second baseman, number 12 read the front of his maroon jersey, was getting back to his feet and tossing the ball back to the pitcher. Maka followed more slowly, the ache from her spontaneous acrobatics catching up to her quickly and unfortunately. A glance down at her uniform told her she'd be in serious need of some Clorox after the game: her uniform was almost entirely orange, and so was the right side of her right sock, the orange contrasting harshly with the uniform red. But a glance at the cheering fans and at her teammates going wild in the dugout made it all worth it.

"That was lucky," twelve commented as he brushed some stray dirt from his knee.

Maka smirked. "That was talent."

He quirked one eyebrow up, but took her boasting in stride; it had worked, lucky or not, and he shrugged his noncommittal response. "Do it twice, and I'll call it talent too."

Her smile widened into something genuine and challenging, and twelve returned it with a bared-teeth grin of his own.

Maka didn't have time to ask the kid's name; Blake was still up to bat - 2 balls, 2 strikes - and with the pitcher glancing over his shoulder in Maka's general direction every 2.4 seconds, she didn't have the opportunity to steal any closer to home. She stomped her leading foot into the red dirt twice, both digging out her stance and sending Blake the silent cheer that the team had developed years ago: Like a bull, runners encouraged the batters to wave that red flag and bring 'em home.

Seventy-four curled into that ridiculous wind-up again and Maka rolled her eyes. She could see Blake's impatience in the way that he constantly rocked his weight from lead-foot-to-planted-foot and readjusted his grip. Maka chewed on her lower lip; Blake needed to settle down, or he was going to be so wound up he wouldn't be able to hit the ball properly.

And he did. As soon as the pitcher was going into his delivery, Blake froze, intense eyes locked onto the ball's trajectory. Maka was off the bag and halfway to third by the time Blake swung his bat; she was twelve feet off third by the time the _clang!_ of bat meeting ball reached her ears. A glance towards first baseline showed Blake running for all he was worth; a glance towards the dugout showed the team screaming for her to run for all she was worth.

A foot planted solidly on the third base bag propelled Maka around the turn. Home plate was in her sights; Evans was in her sight. She could see him yelling for left field to _send it home_ , could see the wild flush high on his cheeks, catcher's helmet abandoned somewhere behind him so he could see to make a play.

Maka was almost to home. Halfway there. Her teammates' screaming in her right ear, Evans' screaming centered in her vision. Her breathing was ragged and desperate, calf muscles burning, protesting each time she flung another foot out to bring her that much closer to home. The ball was pelted towards Evans; Maka saw him jump wild to snag it before it careened out of his reach. She launched herself forward, abandoning every lesson her father had ever drilled about proper sliding form. She was so close; Evans was _not_ going to get her out when she was _so close_.

The catcher's glove slammed down on her head, knocking her batting helmet off; her hand slid across the flat surface of home plate. Maka had dust in her nose, in her lungs; her head ached from Evans' hit. Keeping one hand firmly planted on the plate, Maka raised herself up onto shaking elbows and glanced around, searching for her helmet, searching for the ump's call. Helmet: spinning to a stop three feet away; no wonder her head hurt. Ump: somewhere to her right, pausing, debating, _safe_.

Maka scrambled to her feet, a hoarse cheer already on her lips. The stands were roaring; the dugout was rattling the fence. In just about the most wild play that could have happened in the first inning of the first game, home team had scored. Maka could see Blake safe on first, punching the air. Evans was talking to the ump, lips pursed, and eyebrows drawn angrily; he gave a stiff nod as the ump finished talking. He scooped up both his and Maka's helmets as he passed it, and stopping in front of Maka, Soul handed hers over to her, face still twisted in frustration.

"You're safe on call of malicious contact. According to the ump, I'm lucky he's not throwing me out."

"Oh," was all Maka managed to squeak out. With Evans so close to her after two years, and their embarrassing defeat in the World Series, Maka didn't know how to act or speak around him. So she took her helmet and scampered away, into the safety of the still-celebrating dugout.

Her heart was pounding unnecessarily hard for such a short interaction.

* * *

Noah let two more runs come home after Albarn's lucky break of a run, his concentration and confidence clearly shattered. Several times, Soul glanced back towards Coach Ash, but he was steadfastly ignoring the catcher's pleas to stick another pitcher in. Apparently, he had some kind of hope that Noah would be able to pull his shit together in the next inning; either that, or he didn't want the founder's great-great-whatever grandson suffering the embarrassment of getting pulled in the first inning.

They caught a lucky break on the scrawny shortstop, who must've been far better at his fielding position than anyone else - because his batting was shit, and Soul couldn't think of any better reason why they would put him in the starting lineup. He stood painfully from his crouch when they retired the batter, but waited by home plate until he could fall into step with Noah.

"What's up, dude? What was all that?" he asked the rattled pitcher quietly.

Noah sent him a cold look, but Soul could still see the fear behind the kid's facade. The catcher would guess that the sophomore hadn't played very many games before this one; in fact, he might have started playing in high school, even. "They kept hitting my pitches. Why did they do that? Isn't it _your_ job to make sure they _don't_?"

 _That_ got Soul's back up, and his lip curled as he cut a sidelong glance at his pitcher. "I _was_ making calls that would have given us the best chance of them not hitting your pitches, you pompous asshole." Soul sat down heavily on the bench so he could start unbuckling his gear; he was up first to bat. "If you're not going to follow my calls, then you better learn to start taking responsibility for your own mistakes. 'Cause I sure as hell ain't gonna take on the whole burden. If you want to be able to share blame equally, start working with me as a team out there."

And with that, Soul snagged his bat and batting helmet from where they were propped on the back wall of the dugout, and stormed onto the field. A few deep breaths and over-exuberant practice swings in the on-deck circle while Albarn finished her warm-ups helped to temporarily clear his mind of his pitcher's immaturity.

Watching Albarn's new and improved pitch from the batter's box was completely different than watching it from the dugout - or even the on-deck circle. She was better at twisting her body to extract the most leverage from her submarine pitch, she was better at hiding the movement of her fingers and the direction of her toss. But she still wasn't unreadable, and after the second strike went by, he licked his lips and settled down into his stance.

Movement behind home plate caught Soul's eye, and he relaxed from his stance when Albarn's catcher called a timeout and jogged out to have a pitching conference. Lazily, one eye trained on the battery huddled on the pitcher's mound, Soul swung his bat in a couple circles and adjust the straps on his batting gloves. He hated when there were pitching conferences during his at-bat. It made him nervous and upset his groove; which was the exact purpose of the conference, he knew, but Soul was still bitter about it.

Albarn and - Soul squinted, trying to read the dark-skinned boy's jersey - Rung? were laughing as they parted, and Soul fought back a scowl. What was the point of wasting everyone's time if they were just going to joke around out there on the mound.

But he settled back down into his stance quickly, trying desperately to regain some of the control he'd had of his at-bat before the timeout. A good plan - which was quickly derailed when Albarn seemed to become a completely different pitcher. Soul wasn't sure what Rung had said to her out there on the clay, but any delivery hints Soul had been picking up on were gone. He was literally batting through guesswork - and Soul didn't _do_ guesswork.

Two foul tips kept him alive long enough to stick his bat out in a desperate bunt; he was betting on it being a decent bunt, and on everyone being so surprised that he would choose to bunt in the second inning with bases empty, that he would be able to get a jump on the fielders.

Rung was too damn good at his position though, and the ball was powered over Soul's head to the first baseman's waiting glove. As he slowed to a jog, Soul briefly wondered what would happen if he were to face off against the Reapers' catcher. He honestly didn't know who would win.

Safe behind the dugout fence again, Soul watched with thin-pressed lips as two of his teammates got up to bat, and two of his teammates sat down - out because they watched Albarn pitch them strike after strike. The catcher was very near ready to pull out his hair. He had a feeling that this top of the second inning was setting a tone for the rest of the game - and, unfortunately, his feeling was right.

As the Reapers' continued to pile up hits and one or two runs - even a homerun that had most of the Tarantulas dugout burying their faces in their hands, wondering if Coach was ever going to pull Noah - the Tarantula's score stayed at a big, fat zero.

Coach Ash had quite a few words to say to the JV team - none of them good - after the game, as the teens gathered their duffels and bats, but Soul heard nothing that came out of his Coach's mouth. His attention was focused solely on the other side of the field, eyes constantly scanning the crowded, celebrating team for a flash of blonde here, a swish of a braid there.

When Coach finally shut his mouth and dismissed the boys, Albarn was surrounded by a couple of other girls in pinstriped uniforms - softball players, Soul assumed, based on the ribbons perched at the top of their ponytails. A glance around assured Soul that Giriko was focused on getting set up for the Varsity game, which meant that the catcher was mostly safe to try and sneak over to Albarn and suavely and casually interrupt her conversation.

He needn't have worried, though, because Albarn had spotted Soul as he was trudging his way around the fence to the home team's dugout, finger's white-knuckled around his duffel's strap, and had quickly excused herself from her friends.

She was all post-win excitement and shy smiles when she bounded up to Soul, ballcap turned backwards over her braid - just as it was when he'd first met her. And suddenly, Soul's mouth didn't feel so dry; suddenly, he was able to return her timid "hello" with a smile of his own. Suddenly, he was just a boy who happened to play baseball, and she was just a girl who also happened to play baseball - and they were just friends catching up again after a long time apart. Suddenly, Soul thought, he might just be able to ask her for her number.

* * *

Maka could ignore the catcalls that Liz and Patty threw after her when they saw who she was leaving them to go speak with, but she couldn't ignore the butterflies that had taken up residence in her stomach and were trying desperately to escape.

She took a deep breath as she approached Evans, silently telling herself that _she could do this_. She'd just beat him fair and square on the ball field, so she could march right up to him and tell him _hello_. And so that's what she did. With less marching and more shuffling. But she'd managed to force a smile and a greeting, and so _technically_ she'd won that round too!

But when he'd given her a timid smile of his own, Maka knew that she'd inherently lost. She was so lost. Had he always been that cute? Probably. Deep breaths, Maka told herself, using the same advice that she always gave Tsubaki when the other girl got panicky.

But Maka wasn't good at dealing with uncomfortable situations, and deep breaths had never worked for her and - she blurted out the question that had been bothering her since she'd first seen Evans on the field: "What are you _doing_ here?"

Evans seemed taken aback - and he should be, after being ambushed with a question like that; Maka kicked herself mentally as her face flooded with color. "I mean, like. You're from Connecticut. And I'm pretty sure Eibon Academy is in Las Vegas and I've always thought that Las Vegas and Death City were both in Nevada - but if I'm wrong, and we're actually from Connecticut - oh, my _God_ could you imagine? That sounds like the plot of a _book_ how cool would that be!" She paused to take a breath, and then saw the panic on Evans face, and bit down on her lower lip in embarrassment. "I mean," she squeaked, "Why aren't you in Connecticut."

"I -" his voice cracked, and Maka politely pretended not to notice; both of their faces were red now, and it was the least she could do for him. "I moved to Las Vegas this summer. Uh, that's why I'm - not in Connecticut."

"Oh, uh, right," Maka stammered. "That makes sense. With your brother?" Her voice was small on her last question, not sure whether or not there was a more serious reason why Evans wouldn't be living with his parents, and whether or not it was rude of her to have asked.

"Yeah, that's just how things worked out," Evans answered, with a casual shrug of his shoulders. Maka breathed out a sigh of relief; she hadn't stepped on any social landmines with him, thank God.

She'd just been about to respond when Hiro called her name. He was waiting a polite distance away, and Maka's cheeks pinked when she caught sight of him. "Uh, sorry, my - my boyfriend," she told Evans with a small smile. "I've gotta go, but it was really, really great to see you again! Now that you're not in Connecticut! Even though you're a gross Tarantula! But!" Her cpacity for forced enthusiasm was running out, and Maka was starting to feel slightly on the desperate side. "I definitely wanna play you again, so, like, don't move away from Las Vegas and not tell me!"

And with a small wave, she dashed off towards Hiro.

* * *

After that game, they saw each other infrequently, as team schedules overlapped, and spoke even less frequently. The weird thing about spending so many years with someone was watching that person grow up with you - a change that was even more pronounced when you saw the other as infrequently as Maka did Evans. Each time she saw him, she was more shocked at how tall the boy was getting, how _well_ he was starting to fill out his baseball uniform.

Not that she was watching, or even _noticed_ , when he had to move up several pants sizes over the years because of his growth spurts and also because of the _thighs_ the boy was getting. His pants hugged him in places that Maka was sure was a sin, and when he tucked his pants into his uniform socks - Maka honestly thought she was going to _die_.

He was becoming more comfortable with himself, and with the person he was becoming as well - even managing to ask her for her number during junior year so they could, he'd coughed, exchange commentary during some of the MLB games, if they both happened to be watching.

Maka had smiled and given it to him, knowing full well that he hadn't intended to use it exclusively for baseball commentary. In fact, she'd been the first one to deviate from the Topic: she'd sent him a picture of a cactus blooming, because she'd been so excited to see it.

Things had kept on that vein, growing more friendly, but never becoming real _friends_ who did things outside of texting and baseball - but it was common to see them sitting together on the bleachers at Tarantulas-Reapers games, laughing and chatting about things that had absolutely nothing to do with baseball.

And that was how they'd wound up sitting together on the cold DCHS aluminum bleachers after their last Tarantulars-Reapers game as high school students, watching the sun creep towards the horizon. Maka let her head fall companionably on Soul's shoulder, overcome with nostalgia and a little bit of fear for what came next - all she'd ever known was her Death City friends and teammates, and the thought that she'd be journeying on to play baseball at a new school with new teammates was completely overwhelming.

"I can't believe that we had almost four straight years of winning against you guys, and you just had to go and ruin our streak on the last game," Maka whined.

Soul wrapped an arm around her shoulder with a quiet laugh. "Even spiders have our pride."

They were quiet for a minute, and then Soul asked, "Did you ever decide on which school you're going to choose?"

Maka had gotten several full-ride sports scholarships, but, without knowing what she wanted to do with her life beyond baseball, hadn't been able to make a choice of which school to accept. She shook her head in answer, and felt Soul's chest rumble with a quiet laugh again. "What about you?"

The catcher sighed. "My parents still are holding out for me to go to school back in Connecticut, but I can't imagine living anywhere so green anymore."

That startled a laugh out of Maka, and she poked his side. "The desert's got charm you don't even know about, boy."

"I do remember you telling me that once, yeah." Soul squeezed her shoulder a little. "And I think I get what you mean by it now."

Maka hummed, pleased, and adjusted her head to a more comfortable position. Together, they watched the sun set on their high school memories.


	3. College

The baseball team had an unofficial rule that Blake once put as "we party together; we die together," and which would forever be known as that. Theoretically, the team was big enough that if one person got busted, there would be another member to replace them, but no one wanted to be _that person_ who had gotten their position because so-and-so got busted.

Plus there was nothing that quite said "fraternity" like crashing actual Greek frat parties as one big, huddled mess.

Maka, though not a huge partier herself, liked the relative safety of having twenty of her (very large and very muscular) teammates to flee to if she ever needed to escape an awkward situation or to avoid needing to actually _speak_ to any of the other party-goers. Which was how she found herself squashed, fully clothed, between Evans and a burly third year teammate in a very overcrowded and therefore very overflowing hot tub one Tuesday night, of all days. The hot tub had sounded like a good idea when her good judgment was impaired by a cheap tequila margarita, but as more and more of her teammates and their friends for the night joined, it had quickly lost its appeal.

Everyone was jostling each other, talking and laughing loudly enough that Maka couldn't even hear the previously blasting Top 40 music. Red plastic cups were being carefully held above the steaming water by some of the more conscientious and _conscious_ people; Maka was pretty sure the rest were either so wasted or so baked they didn't even notice half of their drink spilling into the water or onto other people.

For her part, Maka was using keeping her (mostly empty) cup from being knocked from her hand to avoid focusing on how very close she was sitting next to a very shirtless Soul and how very see-through she was sure her own cute top was becoming. Soul moved next to her, back of his hand brushing her thigh before skimming up her side; she squeaked, leaning into the suddenly very interested boy to her left to try and avoid Soul's hand.

Soul sent her a confused look, eyes slightly unfocused from either the heat or the alcohol - or something worse. Maka knew he wasn't opposed to taking a hit or two on a spliff, but if he was high and trying to cop a feel - she would _end_ him.

"Alright, Albarn?" the older teammate she'd leaned into said into her ear. Maka was sure he thought he was being quiet, but she would have classified it as closer to a shout. "Evans 'snot givin' ya hard time, righ'?" The well-meaning guy was slurring his words pretty badly, and Maka could smell the vodka and marijuana drifting from him even through the hot tub chemicals.

She sent him an uncomfortable smile. "Yeah, thanks. Soul just surprised me, was all." Satisfied, the guy turned back to whatever conversation - _nonverbal_ conversation, Maka noticed with a wince - she'd distracted him from.

Maka turned back to Soul with a scowl. He sent her a lazy smile back, and asked, "Yo, Mak, what's your _damage_?"

He wasn't high, at least; Maka had been there as Designated Sober Friend several times when he'd gotten stoned, and could now tell the difference between high, fucking drunk, and pleasantly tipsy. Soul was hovering somewhere between the last two right now: loose and honest, but not exactly aware.

She blew out a lungful of air. He wasn't aware of his extremities, but her face was still burning and so was her side where he'd accidentally felt up, and that made her less than forgiving. "Keep your damn hands to yourself is my damage."

Except he looked so confused and so distraught as he looked between his hands - both of which were held above the water now - and her, that Maka couldn't stay angry with him long. "Did I...did I do something?"

"No," she shook her head, and started to try and extricated herself from the mass of bodies. "No, you're fine. But let's get out of this thing; _you_ 're gonna get even more dehydrated."

The night was warm for early spring in Nevada, but Maka's wet skin still erupted in goosebumps and shivers when the air hit it. She straddled the hot tub wall, trying to drag a whining Soul out after her; her clothes were clinging uncomfortably to her, and between the level of dexterity it took to get out of the overcrowded hot tub _and_ drag Soul out with her, they were getting more attention that she wanted.

Someone - she wasn't going to look over her shoulder to figure out who; she just wanted to _go_ \- wolf-whistled, calling obscene suggestions for a bet on where Evans and Albarn were gonna go. If Maka thought she was blushing from Soul's accidental touch, her face was practically on fire from the bets being placed. She'd known that her teammates had long thought that there was something _more_ going on between her and Evans - since they'd interrupted team tryouts with yells and pointed fingers, surprised the other was there - but until that moment, they tended to keep discussions about it to when Maka wasn't around.

She finally managed to drag Soul, limbs floppy and usually sharp smile goofy, out of the hot tub, and with one of his arms around her shoulders, the whistlers and laughers had moved on to something else. Both Maka and Soul were dripping and fully-clothed - with the exception of Soul's shirt, which Maka knew they'd never find again - and the pitcher had no idea how they were gonna make it back to either dorms across campus without either dying of hypothermia or getting hit by a car.

"Why are you so damn _heavy_ and _impossible_ ," Maka snarled out, gasping for breath. She was trying to guide Soul towards the house, hoping to be able to raid someone's wardrobe for something dry. But a quick search in the downstairs rooms after sitting Soul on a wooden patio chair got her nothing but a couple of bath towels from the linen closet and an abandoned UNR Hockey hoodie; Maka figured she could return it eventually, but it looked too comfy to pass up.

Of course Soul wasn't where she'd left him, so she had to search through the party with a bath towel tucked securely under her arms. She spotted Blake by the bar - of course - and made a quick stop to fish her phone out of his back pocket, with a clap on his back in thanks. It didn't take Maka long to find Soul after that. He was by the radio - of course - bobbing and swaying in time with the beat. She couldn't help but smile fondly at the sight of his drunken attempts at dancing.

A couple of girls nearby were eying up the shirtless, fit boy dancing by himself, and Maka pushed her way through the edge of the crowd, with a scowl, until she could gently grasp Soul by his elbow. The catcher startled, jumping nearly a foot, and looking down at her with wild eyes. Maka sent the girls a sidelong glance and smirked when they looked away, muttering to each other.

"Maka! You almo' killed me!" He was panting from the surprise, and Maka squeezed his arm in apology.

"Sorry 'bout that. You ready to go? I got you a jacket and a water."

"Ye-absolute-le's go!" Maka couldn't help but giggle and roll her eyes as he tried to start three words at once.

She helped him into the hoodie, which must have belonged to a massive dude because it was big even on Soul, and he was one of the tallest guys on the baseball team. Soul slung an arm around her shoulder of his own volition this time, pulling her close under his arm as they navigated towards the exit. Maka tried to slow her racing heart and cool her burning cheeks with the chilled water bottle, but with Soul's heat pressed so close to her side, she knew she was fighting a losing battle.

Maka had known he was attractive and a good ball player and moderately engaging to talk to when they were in high school, but constant exposure and long nights spent talking - because of class, because of travel time, because they'd discovered they actually enjoyed one another's company - had only taught her how great of a person Soul Evans actually was. And Maka hated it. It was very hard to be Just Teammates when he was generally so hot and so _great_ and she was crushing _so hard_.

She was sure Liz was sick of hearing about her panicky reports, after the fourth text-spam, as Maka was discovering how deep she was in _infatuation_ , and those texts - which Liz had screenshot "for posterity" - were a mark of shame for Maka.

Out in the cooler night air, Maka could breathe something other than just hot tub chemicals and someone else's cologne, could feel something other than Soul's body heat. The boy started laughing then, hand moving from hanging in front of her to rest on the top of her head, even though his arm still was resting on her shoulder. Feeling his body shake in a laugh so close to her made Maka's stomach reknot itself, and she groaned, knocking her head into his chest.

"Do you want any water yet? Or a towel? It's gonna be a long walk if we don't make it to the bus stop in the next," she checked her phone, and winced, "20 minutes."

She watched Soul's face morph into a determined expression. "I'll take the wa'er when we get t'the stoop."

"Alright," Maka laughed, ducking out of Soul's grip and catching his hand instead. She wasn't sure when they'd picked up the easy - and completely platonic, Maka constantly reminded herself - habit of holding each other's hands, but she wasn't going to complain about it until Soul did. "Let's get going, then, big guy; it's _aaaall_ the way down at the end of the street."

Soul groaned, head tilted back, and started shuffling forward after her.

They just barely made it to the bus stop in the twenty minutes before the last bus pulled up with a hiss and an overwhelming smell of diesel exhaust, and when the bus driver opened the door to let them in, he nearly shut it on them again. Two dripping students, one very clearly tipsy, with towels wrapped around themselves standing at his last stop on the last bus of the night was almost too much for him to handle.

But Maka sent him a desperate look. "Please, don't! We're just going over to Juniper Hall!"

Soul nodded happily, leaning his shoulder into Maka.

The busdriver sent Soul a measuring look, and as much as Maka relished the contact with Evans, now was not the best time. "Juniper Hall is a good 15 minutes from here, young lady. But…" he sighed, "If your friend there can keep his cookies down and if y'all stand here near the front, I guess I can take ya on over there. Got your cards?"

Maka winced and pulled Soul's soggy wallet from his equally soggy pocket; he was going to regret his decisions for many reasons tomorrow morning. Her card was tucked safely into her phone's case. With many, repeated thanks, she dragged Soul up the steps and handed the bus driver their cards and a limp five she'd taken from Soul's wallet. He was marginally more friendly after her very generous tip, and, with a hiss of hydraulics, closed the door after them.

Traffic was good, and they hit only green lights on their way, so they managed to make it to the dorm hall in just under fifteen minutes. Which was good, because Soul was whining about how he had to pee, and Maka was tired of having to hold him upright and steady while also making small talk with the bus driver. (His name was Roy. He was a burgeoning poet; did she want to hear some of his work? She should stop by Pub 'N Sub on Thursday nights. It's open mic night, which pretty much just mean it was _his_ mic night.)

Roy wished them good luck when he let them off at their right in front of the building, and Maka smiled her thanks and good night. Navigating the stairs to the door was more difficult now that Soul was tired, but they somehow managed, and Maka breathed a sigh of relief when they stood in front of the elevator and it was _operational_. Five floors up gave her time to force some water into her friend, and halfway down the hallway gave her time to remember which room number was Soul's.

Finally - _finally_ they made it to his door, and she managed to get him to swipe his card to unlock it. Maka was just ushering him through the door, when he stopped out of nowhere and turned around to face her.

"Maka," he said, deep voice rumbling way too intimately close. "Thank you. You're...you're _amazin'_." He had one hand tucked into the crook where her neck and shoulder met, and Maka stopped breathing under the serious look in his eyes. Red met green, and quickly, so that she barely had time to register what was happening, Soul leaned down and pressed his lips to her cheek. Well, closer to her jawline than anything, but still a kiss on the cheek.

And the air came rushing back to her.

He was swearing, mumbling something about how he'd missed, damn it, he had to try again - and he'd gotten as far as to lean down close, smelling like cheap whiskey, when Maka pressed a hand to his chest to stop him.

"Yes, yes, I know," she laughed, crushing whatever hope had started to grow. "I'm the most amazing caretaker in the world. Go to sleep, you drunk."

Soul had stopped then, eyes searching her own before backing off with a quick grin. "Well, 's long as y'know it then. Night."

"Night," Maka answered softly, with a small smile. And then he was closing the door to his room, and she was turning around to trudge dutifully up another three floors to her room.

The next morning, he didn't mention anything that happened after leaving the hot tub, and so Maka didn't either. Why bring up false hopes to someone who didn't even remember them?

* * *

Their second year at University of Nevada at Reno (UNR for anyone who didn't hate themselves) came with several big changes. Sophomores weren't required to live in the campus dorms, and Soul managed to squeeze some extra change out of his parents in order to get an off-campus apartment with a two other of his year- and teammates. He'd offered to get an apartment with Maka, since Blake Hoshizoku was one of the already-committed roommates, but she'd already committed to a place with some of the softball girls she knew from high school.

The starting catcher Mifune had also graduated, moving Soul up from benchwarmer to Mifune's position, in a administrative decision that shocked everyone but Maka. She'd smirked and held out her hand after the announcements were made and they were headed to a graduating member's apartment for semester-end celebrations.

"I don't know why everyone was so surprised," she'd said, and Soul thought his heart was going to work its way up and out of his throat at the affection so plain in her voice. "If anyone's ever _seen_ you catch, it would be the obvious choice. Tim's destined to waste away as bullpen or your relief catcher now, and I'm okay with it."

"Oh, yeah?" Soul'd managed to force out, even though air was seriously lacking now.

Maka had given his hand a squeeze before releasing it, and tucking both behind her back; she spun to walk backwards so she could face him as she spoke. "Absolutely. That means that I finally get to pitch to you."

Soul had frozen mid-step; the realization that Maka was a Varsity relief pitcher and the implications that held for him as the Varsity starting catcher only just hit him as she said that. "Holy shit." A grin split his face. "Holy shit!"

His pitcher - he could finally say that; _his_ pitcher! - threw her head back and laughed with him when he snagged her around the waist and spun her around. When he came to a stop, still holding her, she knocked her knuckles lightly against his forehead, small smile still on her face. "All those strategic brains, and you didn't even realize that?"

The catcher shook his head. "It's been kind of a big day; cut me some slack." Slowly, regretfully, he put her back on her feet, hands lingering around her waist just a moment longer than necessary; he hoped she didn't realize it, just like he hoped it was dark enough to cover his flushed cheeks.

Maka didn't hesitate to grab his hand, though; it was as if she, too, needed some kind of physical reassurance that he was there, and that this was all really happening. They started back down the sidewalk as she spoke quietly. "We're gonna be the ultimate battery, Soul; like nothing UNR's ever seen before." Her hand tightened around his. "We're gonna crush my dad's records, right?"

Soul squeezed her hand gently back. "Absolutely."

The first day of summer training, Soul had never been happier to be back to crouching behind home plate. It meant he was able to leave his parents' forced socialization (if you're going to go to college in _Nevada_ \- the scorn was tangible - you _will_ come spend breaks in Connecticut) and move back to freedom and the place he actually considered home; five years ago, deserts and antelope skulls had been foreign and disconcerting, but now there was nothing more comforting that the sight of endless sand stretching before him.

Being back behind home plate also meant that he had _Maka Albarn_ to look at for the next three years, and the thought sent a thrill through him. He'd been wanting to catch this girl's pitch since he'd first seen her throw a ball when they were _twelve_. And now, here he was, one signal away from being the one to call her pitch.

Soul wasn't sure why they hadn't just practiced together during team breaks; it hadn't felt right for some reason, as though it would be like pitching and catching in a dreamland. There would have been awesome chemistry, innate understanding - and then they would have to go back to their ordinary batteries, and nothing would be able to match up.

At least, that's what Soul was hoping it would be like. What he had hoped and imagined off and on over the past seven years it would be like.

The catcher took a deep breath, recentering himself in his crouch. Maka was standing with her body turned to the side, head pointed towards him; waiting for his call - _his_ call! The pitching coaches were somewhere over to the side, observing, Soul knew, and a couple of the other relief pitchers were watching as well, trying to find the new catcher's measure. But none of that mattered with Maka's attention focused exclusively on him.

He brought his knees together, and her eyes dropped to follow the motion of the reflective tape he'd wrapped around his fingers. Middle finger pointed straight down (low) followed by an upside down peace sign (two seam fastball) meant a sinker; Maka grinned at him, and tugged her ball cap low in assent. They'd gone over her pitching capabilities and favorite pitches until late in the night, and he'd been wildly excited to know that she had a sinker even as a submarine pitcher; finding out that it was her favorite pitch had just been the icing on the cake.

Soul dropped to a one-knee crouch, glove held low and steady in the middle of the strike zone. A few people murmured, not having seen his callsigns and thinking that he was just going to have her pitch up an easy fastball to start with. He grinned behind his catcher's mask as Maka pulled her knee to her chest in her (beautiful, textbook) windup. The newer players exclaimed over the girl's submarine delivery, and Soul's smile only widened. He'd been drooling over her pitch for seven years; it was time for someone else to join him.

The catcher had to move his glove minisculely to the left to compensate for the pitch's moving nature, and when he stood to toss the ball back, he knocked his mask back so she could see his excited grin.

Maka mirrored his expression, and Soul's heart leapt, filling with the hope that she liked pitching to him as much as he liked catching for her.

"84 mph, sinker," came the dutiful report from the pitching coach's assistant. "One of her fastest and most accurate."

The pitching coach hummed his interest, watching the pair from behind his oval glasses. He had an earring in his left ear, which he had a habit of turning while he thought. Coach Stein - Frankenstein to some of the older members, who had seen firsthand some of the coach's odder tendencies. Coach Stein repeated that interested hum, and a nod of the head to indicate to Soul and Maka to keep pitching, gaze becoming more analytical and ambitious as he watched them. When Maka was sweating, and Soul's thighs were stiffening, the coach signaled his assistant. "One more," the man called out, taking a sip of his iced coffee.

Soul looked at Maka with raised eyebrows, and she tilted her head.

Soul didn't need to call a sign, and just settled into a tall crouch. A fast curveball would round out the breadth of Maka's pitching style, would make the team and the coaches realize just how indispensable she would be - beyond just the rarity of having a submarine pitcher. They hadn't actually practiced the curve, had just discussed the mechanics behind it until both Blake and Soul's other roommate had kicked them out of the apartment with loud whines and a couple of thrown pillows (some people have an _actual need to sleep_.)

So when Maka's arm came out at that odd, titled angle - Soul was a little surprised to see it looked very similar to her last pitch. Just the smallest movement of her hips and fingers were what alerted Soul to the direction of the pitch, and he adjusted his glove accordingly. Maka had told him that for these pitches, she didn't need him to direct the exact location he wanted it to go, but rather to point out the middle of the strike zone and he would find the ball from there. He'd doubted her at first, but after she'd slowly and repeatedly told him about the mechanical signs to look for - well, Maka would make a great coach someday, when she was a famous, retired pitcher.

Soul placed his glove directly in the path of the ball, and grinned when he felt and then heard it smack solidly into his palm. He straightened, and met Maka halfway to the pitching coach; they would be a united front when he gave them his report. Most of the other relief pitchers had broken off to toss balls back and forth, to keep their arms limber until their turn, but Soul could see they keep one ear turned to catch Frankenstein's report.

Coach Stein looked between the two for several moments, while they shifted uncomfortably under his piercing gaze. "Albarn," Maka snapped to attention, "Submarine pitching is all about leveraging your body to get the fastest pitch, the greatest torque you can from it; you don't need to be strong to be good. Stop trying to be strong. We'll work on that."

When the coach's gray eyes shifted to Soul, the catcher had to fight his natural instinct to grab for Maka's hand. "Evans." Soul pushed his shoulders back. "Nice reading Albarn's pitches out there. Your first time catching for her, right? Very impressive. You had to correct yourself several times, though; that makes umpires naturally inclined to call a strike. We'll fix it. You and Albarn might not need callsigns in your battery, but they help the infield know what kind of hit they can expect, so use them."

Frankenstein offered the two a disconcerting hint of a smile. "Very nice, though, you two. I expect we'll have a very powerful battery on our hands when you get used to each other."

And with that, they were dismissed, practice finished for the day. A couple teammates clapped them on the shoulder as they passed, but all Soul had eyes for was Maka's proud grin.

* * *

The next time Soul and Maka found themselves in a hot tub together, it was junior year and they were miraculously alone - somebody from inside the house had yelled through the open slider something about body shots and keg stands, which had cleared the hot tub fasted than Maka had believed possible - _and_ they had managed to remember to bring swimsuits with them this time. Maka stretched her legs out across the hot tub seat, crossing her ankles in Soul's lap, glad for the room to move that they had now.

"I am _so_ sore, but _so_ happy," Maka sighed, taking another sip of her mixed drink. She didn't know what was in this one, but it tasted vaguely of cherry and happiness, so she wasn't complaining. Especially not when Soul abandoned his beer bottle into the hot tub's cupholder and started massaging small circles into the tired arches of Maka's feet. The pitcher tilted her head back and let out a small whimper of a moan that would have embarrassed her if she wasn't on her second drink - and if it hadn't felt as good as it did.

"You are a _magician_ with your hands, oh my god," she said, barely comprehending the words that came out of her mouth. Soul seemed to, though, because he slid his hands up from her feet to her ankle, and pulled her closer so he could reach her very sore calves.

He gave her a very dirty look from under his dripping, shaggy white hair - she'd told him multiple times that he needed a haircut, but now, with him looking at her the way he was, she'd never been more glad that he didn't listen to her. "What was that about my hands?" he asked, teasing the back of her knee where he knew she was ticklish.

Maka squealed and twisted in his grasp, inadvertently winding up almost in the catcher's lap, her hands resting on his chest.

They'd gotten progressively more handsy with each other as the years in college wore on, but Maka had always written it off as Soul being a natural cuddler, and that she was the only girl he was comfortable enough to cuddle with. Not that telling herself that they were _just friends_ had ever eased her pounding heart when he'd pillow his head on her lap during Movie Night or pull her close so he could rest his head on top of hers as a makeshift pillow during long bus rides.

But with him looking at her like he was, and with alcohol burning in her belly, Maka carefully inched closer. "Y'know, it's really my back that hurts," she said, looking up at him through her lashes.

His fingers, which had been playing absentminded piano runs on the outside of her thighs stilled suddenly. She watched Soul's mouth as he licked his lips.

"Yeah? Should - Want me to do something about that?" his voice was low and husky, and she could feel it rumbling in his chest. He trailed his hands lightly up her sides and around to her lower back, automatically finding the spot that always plagued her. He'd discovered early on that her pitching style caused a lot of strain to be placed on her lower hips and back, and he'd taken it up as his personal job to make sure she never remained sore for long.

Maka's eyes fluttered shut involuntarily, and she arched back into the light pressure of his fingers, which were skimming lower and lower with each circle he rubbed into her skin. When his pinky slipped just past the waistband of her bikini bottom and stopped, Maka's eyes flew open.

Soul was watching her with hooded eyes, color from the alcohol or from the hot tub high on his cheeks. "You're amazing, Maka," he breathed, light pressure from his fingertips bringing her closer to him. The pitcher's heart started pounding in a way she was sure was dangerous, but at the moment couldn't bring herself to care about. "I told you it once Freshman year, but you just laughed me off. So I'm gonna tell you again. And I mean it."

She opened her mouth to say something, but for the first time in Maka's life, her brain failed to supply her with the right answer. So, she let her body do her talking for her, like she did out on the ball field. Closing the last few centimeters between them, Maka settled her knees lightly on either side of Soul's strong thighs, trailing the backs of her nails up his chest to cup his jaw. "You're drunk," she whispered, mouth close enough to that their lips brushed with each word. "And so am I; enough so that I think I might just believe you."

A wide grin crinkled his eyes in the way that made her want to kiss him, and so she did. Maka hesitated a moment over his mouth, not wanting to push him to something he didn't want, but he tilted his chin up and closed the hair's breadth she'd left between their lips. It was warm and sweet, with just enough insistence that Maka knew she wasn't dreaming; it was everything a first kiss with someone you loved should be.

They broke apart, short of breath, and Soul leaned back just enough that he could look her in the eyes. One of his hands had dropped lower to rest on the curve of her ass, while the other had slid up to splay across her back, holding her close to his chest. He brought this hand up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear with so much affection, Maka's alcohol addled brain could only process the emotion with tears Soul wiped away with a calloused thumb.

"You're amazing," Soul told her again, pressing a chaste kiss to her temple. "And beautiful." He trailed his mouth across her cheek to kiss the tip of her nose. "And one hell of a pitcher." He lightly kissed the corner of her mouth. "And just so goddamn amazing," Soul murmured the words against her lips, before gently taking the lower one between his teeth.

Maka gasped, pressing herself closer to him. There was very little between them in the water, but it still felt like too much. "I think - I think you mentioned that last one before," she managed to stutter out as Soul moved his attention to her neck.

He sucked at a spot just below her jaw line, and Maka shuddered, unable to keep back a moan. "It's worth repeating," Soul said, and Maka could feel his smile against her skin. "And I'll say it as many times as you want to hear it."

"Are you asking me out?" Maka asked, tracing the stubble on Soul's jawline with calloused fingertips.

"Are you saying yes?"

Maka's wide grin made it really hard to kiss him, but she sure did try.

* * *

 **THE END**

 **so this was resbang & i hope you all enjoyed it! s/o to professor-maka for being the number one beta and putting up with my whining all the time! also s/o to my artists (tumblr urls) ahshesgone & mrsashketchum for being amazing and creating amazing artIn fact mrsashketchum created the cover for this fic which is just really darn amazing ok**

 **check their art out here: ash (ahshesgone . tumblr** **post/136011000560/this-is-my-contribution-to-resbang-2015-and-it-was)** ** & Mak (** **mrsashketchum. tumblr post/136040011458** **) - without the spaces between things & with the (dot c o m) tho obviously**

 **feel free to come yell with me about baseball on tumblr (url: absolutrash)**


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